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Copy 1 




THE GRAY BOOK 




Published by the 

GRAY BOOK COMMITTEE S. C. V. 

By Authority, and Under Auspices of 

The Sons of Confederate 
Veterans 



SZSiSBSBSH52SHSHSHSHSiL5HSE52SHSHSa5HSHS3H5HSHSZSSSHSH5HS2SH5aSZSH5SSHSBSHScL5HS2 



ilOLL OF HONOR 

Tlic list licldw coiilniiis tlie names of those wliosc eontributed 
riiihls iiiiidc itdssiMc the |iiililiciiti(Hi iiiid (listi'ilnitioii u[ tlic (.Jray 
l>(i()k : 

A. II. Jciiiiiii^s, IjviuIiIiiiii;', \'a. 

W. W. Old. dr., Noid'olk, Va., 

W . McDonald Lee, Trviiiiiton, \'a. 

K. IT. Blaloek, Washin<rtoii. D. ('. 

J. R. Price, Wasliington, X. ('. 

W. 0. Hart, New Orleans, La. 

\V. V. Oallowav. Wiliuin.uton, N. ('. 

Edsi-ar Scurry,' Wicliita Falls, Tex. 

S. Y. Fertrnson, Wichita Falls, Tex. 

J. A. Jones, Athmta, Ga. 

J. Gwvnn Goiigh, St. Louis, Mo. 

F. R. Fravel, Ballston, Va. 

Sevmour Stewart, St. Louis, Mo. 

W." E. Quin, Ft. Payne, Ala. 

L. B. Hogan, Aikens, Ark. 

J. M. Ranson, Harpers Ferry, W. Va. 

J. F. Tateni, Norfolk, Va. 

J. S. Cle<jhorn, Lyerly, Ga. 

J. H. Leslie, Leesburg, Va. 

J. L. Chancellor, Jacksonville. Fla. 

A. L. Gaston, Chester, S. C. 

J. B. "Westmoreland, Woodruff, S. C. 

D. S. Etheridiic. Chattanooga, Tenn. 
C. H. Bennett, Washington, D. C. 
R. A. Doyle, East Prarie, Mo. 

W. J. McWillianis, Monroe, La. 
X. B. Forrest, Biloxi, Miss. 
Carl Hinton, Demer, Colo. 
Ben Watts, Cave Springs. Ga. 
J. H. Watkins, ^Fonroe, La. 
C. D. Murphy. Atkinson, X. c. 
Roht. Blanks. ]\ronroe. La. 
S. L. Adams. South Boston, Va. 

E. W. R. Ewing, Washington, D. C. 
C. H. Fauntloroy, St. Louis, Mo. 






CONTENTS 

TAG]'; 

lioll of I loiior 1 

liiti'odiu'tioii 3 

TIh' (ieiierally ^lisiiiulerstood Kiiiaueipatioii Proclaniatioii ... 5 

The Soutli Xot Ki'S])()iisil)l(' for Slavery 11 

Tivatiin'iit of l'i'isoii('i-s ill the Coiifetleraey 18 

Tlie Soiitli ill tlic Matter of Pensions 33 

Injustice to the Soiitli 35 

The Seeession of IHIil Founded lT|)on Le,<;al IJi^lit 41 

'I'he Soutli and (ieniiaiiy 51 

( )nieers 51 






-^ 



■ '^ o 



The Gray Book 



Introduction 



TWV. reasons foi- tlio (Jray liook aro j)iir('ly (Iffciisivc and on liolialf of the 
triitli of history, and the call for this puidit-ation conu-s from attacks, 
past, present and continiiiii<;, npon the history, people and institutions 
of this Southern section of oui- united country. 

'llu'se attacks and untruthful presentations of so-called history (h'inand re- 
futation, for the South cannot surrender its liirtlirijiht and we pray the day 
may never dawn when it will he willinj; to ahandon tlie truth in a cowardly or 
slu';j;ish spiiit of pai-itisin. Xor de wc care to see the day come when 
■■'I he lie, its work well done, shall rot. 
Truth is stronj; and will prevail. 
When none shall care if it prevail or not." 
])urin<j the (Jreat War, when the South and all other i)arts of our country 
were straininij every nerve to defeat a common foe, straiifje and unhelievaltle 
as it may seem at such a time of crisis, there was a most remarkable flood of 
misrepresentation, false analogy, and distorted historical statenu'uts con- 
cerning our American history as it particularly relates to the Southern 
people. Ignorance, as well as deliherate distortion of facts, contributed to 
this unfortunate and ill-timed display. 

A distinguished New Englander writing to a prominent ollicer of the Sons 
of Confederate \'eterans, stated, "so far as New England is concerned, preju- 
dice is still deep," and those who keep abreast of things know that this state 
of aflairs is not couMiuhI to that section. We have the delil)erate statement 
of a we]l-kiu)wn writer and literary worker, who knows whereof he speaks, 
that "nuudi atrocious sectionalism" tries to get into ■■]niblications whicli will 
have a very wide circulation in a patriotic ca])acity." 

Innumerable examples are on hie and could be (pu)ted but no one who reads 
at all could have failed to note this mass of unfair and untruthful state- 
emnts which for vears has filled newspapers, magazines and periodicals of 
the North. 

Xor has this dcfanuition ceased with the end of tlie (ireat War — it still 
goes on, unabated, and there is a constant and strong stream of misrepresen- 
tation and false historical statement flowing from the North. ^loreover, this 
constant reiteration of misstatement and falsehood has had the ett"ect of 
totally misleading and blinding to the truth of our country's history foreign- 
ers who would naturally be unbiased and neutral. This was ainindantly 
proven by Lloyd (Jeorge's remarkable cable to the New York 'limes on the 
occasion of Lincoln's birthday during the las year of the (ireat War, "we are 
lighting the same battle which your countrymen fought under Lincoln's 
leadership fifty years agti. Lincoln did not shrink from vindicating obtli 
union and freedom by the terrible in.strument of war." 

It is scarcely necessary to call attention to the totally untrue inferences 
to be drawn from this uttt-raiice, addressed to the world at large by Kngland's 
leading statesman. And in France when Leon Buorgecdse cited the trial 
and execution of .Major Wirz as a legal precedent for the trial of the (Jernuin 
Kaiser by the Allies, he exhibited tlie same total misconception of the truth 
of our history, misled of course by years of false Northern teaching of our 
country's all'airs. And of late there has aj)|)eared a play, based upon the 
life of Abraham Lincoln, which has been witnes.sed by thousands of peo])le 
in England and this country and tens of thousands of approving words 



written concerning it, which totally misrepresents the spirit of that time and 
whose whole trend is unfair and unjust to the South. 

One of the points upon which the Soutli is most frequently and pointedly 
assailed and misrei>resentcd is the claim that the North fought the war to 
free the slaves. This statement is contrary to the assertions of Lincoln, 
Grant and Sherman and contrary to all the common sense evidence of the 
times. With scarcely one soldier in twenty in the Soutliern Armies owning 
even one slave and with thousands of Northern soldiers being slave owners, 
is it reasonable to assert that each went to war to tight against his own 
interests? Is it not a repulsive thought that any mind could V)e so consti- 
tuted as to believe that Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnson and Stonewall 
Jackson fought their immortal light to hold some negroes in slavery ! Noth- 
ing could ])e more unfair or untruthful than to represent the North as going 
into the War Between the States as upon some holy crusade to free the 
slaves from their Southern owners, to whom, it may be remarked in passing, 
in very large measure they had been sold by this same North — and the money 
not refunded ! 

And yet a ]n-omincnt American author makes this assertion in an article 
he wrote at the request of the United States Committee on Public Informa- 
tion, which article thus misrepresenting the South and hypocritically lauding 
the North was taken hj this government Committee to France and scattered 
through her schools and among her children to teach them what "sort of 
people we Americans are." Further, a well-known writer and former divine, 
wrote an article, using most offensive terms, misrepresenting the South, which 
was most prominently featured in the official puljlication of the Y. ^1. C. A., 
and was scattered through the cantonments and camps of France and tliis 
country during the war. 

Instances without number could be quoted, l)ut these few sample cases show 
the direction and nature of the tide of falsehood and misrepresentation con- 
stantly pouring ujjon the Simthern people. 

Another point upon which we are constantly misrepresented is the applica- 
tion of the term "rebellion" to the secession of the SoTitliern states from tlie 
Union. \\'ithout going into details, it is a conceded fact that during tlie 
earlier days of the Union the right of a state to secede was generally recog- 
nized. Uiis right was asserted more than once by states in the North, who 
later refused to allow the South to assert the same claim. ^lassachusetts 
was a prominent believer in the rights of secession in the early days. John 
Quincy Adams declared on the floor of Congress, at the time of the admission 
of Texas as a state, that New England ought to secede, while the Hartford 
Con\ention threatened similar stejts while our country was actively engagcVl 
in the war of 1812. Even at the time when the North declared the South 
had no right to secede, although having themselves asserted that right jjre- 
viously, we see West Virginia encouraged and assisted in secession from tlie 
mother state, while of late years the secession of Panama from Colombia 
was not only recognized by this government, but the forces of the United 
States made the secession an accomplished fact. The South is willing to 
stand by her record as to secession — she is unwilling to submit to the false 
claims now asserted by the North that the war was waged to grant liberty 
to sull'ering slaves. 

In the face of this state of affairs, the Sons of Confederate Veterans have 
determined to offer refutation of a ])art at least of the false history which 
almost overwhelms us and through this issue of this modest book, which we 
now offer, we hope to attract attention to the truth, and do, in our feeble 
way, our part toward establishing it. 

A. II. Jennings, Clniirman. 

The Cray Book Committee S. C. V. 
Arthur 11. Jeiuiings, Chairman, Lynchlairg, Va. 
]\latthew Page Andrews, Baltimore, ^Id. 
C. 11. Fauntleroy. St. Louis, Mo. 



The Generally Misunderstood Eman- 
cipation Proclamation 

THERE is 110 doc-uiiieiit so little road or so widely inisuuder- 
stood as the Eiiiancipatioii Proclamation — there is no sub- 
ject so entirely misstated as Lincohi's connection with, and 
attitude toward, freeing the negro. 

Lincoln, who never freed a slave, is called ''The Emancipator," 
while The Emancipation Proclamation, a war measure of the stern- 
est description, holding within its possibilities an untold measure of 
woe for the South, is almost universally hailed as a great "humani- 
tarian" document I 

To those who wish to l<no\v tlic truth, attention is directed to 
these several points especially — the document is sell'-styled "a war 
measure; it not only did not free a single slave (this was done long 
afterward by Congressional action and the 13th amendment) but it 
expressly and particularly continued to hold in bondage the only 
slaves it could have freed, viz., those in country held by Federal 
armies and under the jurisdiction of the United States government; 
intended as a war measure to demoralize the South and destroy the 
morale of Southern armies there is a pointed hint at servile insur- 
rection in paragraph third from the last in the proclamation of 
January 1st, 1863. 

Attention is also called to Lincoln's attitude toward freeing the 
negro, as clearly expressed by him in a letter to Horace Greely, just 
prior to issuing the proclamation. 

This letter, inserted below, is copied faithfully from the files of 
the Xew York Tribune now in the Congressional Library. It most 
abundantly speaks for itself. In it Lincoln makes use of expres- 
sions which entirely dispose of any claim that he was waging war 
to free the slaves and which confound those who so persistently mis- 
represent the causes of the war between the states. 

"My paramount object," he says, "in this struggle is to save the 
Union, and is not, either to save or destroy slavery. Tf I could save 
the Union without freeing any slave T would do it: and if T could 
save it by freeing all the slaves, T would do it. ^\'llat 1 do al»oiit 
slavery and the colored race T do because T believe it hel])s tn save 
the Union." 

This letter and the terms and restrictions of the Proclamation 
itself show beyond any doubt the entirely war-like ])urpose of the 
proclamation and the entire absence of any Imnianitarian element 
either in Lincoln's purposes in jiromulgating it or in the provisions 
of the instrument itself. 



Lincoln's Letter to Greeley, (from Vol. 23 New York Tril^une, 
August 25, 1862, page 4, column '■), on file in Congressional Li- 
brary), with a few preliminary and non-essential sentences omitted: 

Executive Maxsion, Washington, 
August 22, 1862. 

"Hon. iroracc Greeley: 
Dear Sir: 
I would save the LTniou. 1 would save it the shortest way under 
the constitution. The sooner the Xational authority can l)e re- 
stored, the nearer the Union will lie 'the U]iion as it was.' Tf there 
be those who would not save thi' I'nion unless they could at the 
same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount 
thoiie who would not save the Union unless they could at the same 
time destroy slavery, I do not agree with tlu^n. MAL-patamount 
object in this struggle is to save the Union, aiid is not either to 
sa\e or destroy .slavery. Tf T could save the Union without freeing 
any slave, 1 would do it: and if I could save it by freeing all the 
slaves, I would do it: and if T could save it by freeing some and 
leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery 
and the colored race, 1 do because I believe it helps to save this 
Union: and what I forliear, T forl)ear because I do not believe it 
would help to save the Union. I have here stated my purpose ac- 
cording to my view of official duty and I intend no modification of 
my oft expressed poi'sonnl wish that all men, ever^^diere, could be 
free. 

Yours, 

A. Ltncolx." 

Here follows the i)i'cliniinaiT ju'oclamation of Sept. 22, 1862, 
and then afterward the "Emancipation Proclamation" itself, ex- 
empting from its provisions all those slaves in territory held by 
Fedci'al arms and undci' jurisdiction of he U. S. government. 

By the President of the United States of Amei'ica. 
A PROCLAMATIOX. 

T. Abraham Lincoln. President of the United States of America. 
and Connnander-in-Ghief af the Army and Xavy tliereof, do hereby 
proclaim and declare that hereafter, as hei'etofore, the war will be 
prosecuted for the object of practically restoring the constitutional 
relation between the United States and I'aeh of the States and the 
people therof in which States that relation is or nniy be suspended 
or distributed. 

That it is my ])uriiose. u]ion the next meeting of Gongress, to 
again reeommeiid llie adoption of a ])i'actical measure temlering 
pecuniaiw aid to tlie lice acceptance or rejection of all slave States, 
80 called, the pi'opK' wliereot' may not then be in rebellion against 



the United States, and wliitli States may then have voluntarily 
adopted, or tliereafter may voluntaiily adopt, immediate or jrradual 
aliolishnient of slavery within theii- respeetive limits; and that the 
effort to eolonize persons of African deseent witli their consent ui)on 
this continent or elsewhere, with the previously ol)tained <-onsent 
of the o-overnnionts existin": there, will he continued. 

That on the 1st day of January. A. D. 1863 all jXM-sons held as 
slaves within any State or desi<rnated ]iart of a State the people 
whereof shall then he in rebellion aofanist the United States shall be 
then, thenceforward, and forever ^'ree ; and the executive ,<iovern- 
nient of the United States, includinfr the military and naval 
authority thereof, will i-eco<rnize and nuiintain the freedom of such 
persons and will do no act or acts to re])ress such persons, or any 
of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. 

That the Ivxecutive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by 
proclamation, desipiiate the States and ])arts of States, if any, in 
which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion 
against the United States ; and the fact that any State or the people 
thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Cour 
gress of tlic I'liited States l»y members chosen thei-eto at elections 
wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have 
participated shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, 
Ite deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people 
thereof are not then in rebellion against the United States. 

That attention is hereby called to an act of Congress entitled "An 
act to make an additional article of war." ap])roved "^^arcb 1:^. lSfi2. 
and which act is in the words and figure following: 

•'Be it enacted by the Senate ami TTouse of T?eiiresentatives of 
the Ujiitel States of AnuM-ica in Congress assembled. That here- 
after the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of 
war for the government of the Army of the T'nited States, and shall 
be obeyed and observed as such : 

Art. — All officers oi- persons in the military or naval service of 
the Unite<l States are ])rohibited from employing anv of the forces 
under their rosi)ectiv(^ commands for the ])urpose of returninir fugi- 
tives f''oiii sci\ ire or lalxn- who may have esca]ied from anv persons 
to whom such service or labor is claimed to l)e due. and anv officer 
who should he fouml guiltv by a court-martial of violating this 
article shall he dismissed from the service. 

Sec. 2. .^nd be it furthe'- enacted. That this act shall take effect 
from and aftci- its passage.'" 

Also to the ninth and tenth sect'ons of an act entitled ''An act 
to su])]ti'ess insiincct ion. to )iiiiiish treason and rebellion, to seize 
and confiscate the property of rebels, and for other purposes." ap- 
proved July IT 1S()2. and which sections are in the wonls and 
figures following : 

Sec. 9. And Ix' it furtbei- enacted. That all slaves of persons who 
shall bei'eafter be engaged in rebellion aL;ainst the (lovenunent of 



the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort 
thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the 
lines of the anny, and all slaves captured from such persons or de- 
serted by them and coming under the control of the Government of 
the United States, and all slaves of such persons found on (or) 
being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards 
occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives 
of war and shall be forever free of their servitude and not again 
held as slaves. 

Sec. 10. And be it further enacted, That no slave escaping into 
any State, Territory, or the District of Columbia from any other 
State shall be delivered up or in any way impeded or hindered of 
his liberty except for crime or some offense against the laws, unless 
the person claiming said fugitive shall first make oath that the 
person to whom the labor or service of such fugitive is alleged to 
be due is his lawful owner and has not borne arms against the 
United States in the present rebellion nor in any way given aid and 
comfort thereto; and no person engaged in the military or naval 
service of the United States shall, under any pretense whatever, 
assume to decide on the validity of the claim of any person to the 
service or labor of any other person or surrender up any such person 
to the claimant on pain of being dismissed from the service." 

And I do hereby enjoin upon and order all persons engaged in 
the militai'y and naval service of the United States to observe, 
obey, and enforce within their respective spheres of service the act 
and sections above recited. 

And the Executive will in due time recommend that all citizens 
of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto through- 
out the rebellion shall, upon the restoration of the constitutional 
relation between the United States and their respective States and 
peo])le. if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed, be 
compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including 
the loss of slaves. 

In witness whereof T have hereunto set my hand and caused tbe 
seal of the United States to be affixed. 

Done at the City of Washington, this 22d day of Sep- 
(SKAi.) temlier, A. D. 1862, and of the Independence of the 
Ignited States the eighty-seventh. 

Abraham Lixcolx. 

By tlie President: 

WiLT.lAM IT. Si:\\ Ai;i). Sn rchirii of Shilr. 

Taken from "A Coiiipilation of the Messages and Papers of 
the Presidents 1 T.SO-LSDT. pulilished by authority of Congress by 
James D. Hichardson, a Pe])resentativ(' from the State of Tennessee, 
Volume VI, Page OG." 

8 



IJy \\\v President of the United States of Ainci'ica. 
A PROCLAMATIOX. 

Whereas on the 22d day of September, A. D. 1862, a proclama- 
tion was issued by the President of the United States, containing, 
among other things, the following, to wit : 

'•That on the 1st (hiy of January. A. D. ISCV.). all persons held as 
slaves witliin any State or (k'sigiiated part of a State the people 
whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall 
be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive gov- 
ernment of the United States, including the military and naval 
authority thereoof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such 
persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any 
of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom. 

That the Executive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid, by 
proclamation, designated the States and parts of States, if any, in 
which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion 
against the United States ; and the fact that any State or the people 
thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Con- 
gress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections 
wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such States shall have 
participated sliall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, 
be deemed conclusive evidence that such State and the people there- 
of are not then in rebellion against the United States." 

Xow, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United 
States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief 
of the Army and Xavy of the United States in time of actual armed 
'rebellion against the authority and Government of the United 
States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said 
rebellion, do, on this 1st day of January, A. D. 1863, and in accord- 
ance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full 
period of one hundred days from the day first above mentioned, 
order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the 
people thereof, respectively, are this day in rel)ellion against the 
United States the following, to wit: 

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the ])arishes of St. Bernard, 
Placjuemincs. Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, 
Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche. St. Mary. St. Martin, and 
Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, 
Florida, Ceorgia, South Carolimi, North Carolina, and X'irginia 
(except the forty-eight counties designated as West \'irginia, and 
also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth 
City, York, Princess .Vnne, and Norfolk, including the cities of 
Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted ])arts are for the 
present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued. 

And by virtue of the i)ower and for the purpose aforesaid, T do 
order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said desig- 

9 



nated States and i)arts of States aro and heneefonvard shall be free, 
and tliat the executive government of the United States, including 
the niilitary and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and main- 
tain the freedom of said jDersons. 

And I herein- enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to 
abstain from all violence, unless in necessar}- self-defense; and I 
recommend to them that in all cases when allowed they labor faith- 
fully for I'easonable wages. 

And 1 fui'ther declare and make known that such persons of suit- 
able condition will be received into the armed service of the United 
States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places and to 
man vessels of all sorts in said service. 

And upon this act, sincerely Ijelieved to be an act of justice, 
warrantee! by the Constitution ui)on military necessity, I invoke the 
considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Al- 
mighty God. 

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the 

seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of 

(seal) Washington, this 1st day of January, A. D. 1863, and of 

the Independence of the United States of America the 

eighty-seventh. 

Abraham Lincoln. 
By the President : 

WiLi-TAvr H. SinvATtn. SecreUinj of Sfafr. 

Taken from "A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of 
the Presidents 1789-18UT, published by authority of Congress by 
James D. Pichardson, a Representative from the State of Tennessee, 
Volume YI, Page 157." 



10 



The South Not Responsible for Slavery 

Neither the Introdiutioii (A Shnes into America iior their con- 

tiuued Importation can he Cliarfred to tlie South. 

By Arthui' II. .lenninizs. Cliaiiiiian Gray Bo<»k Com. 



Undoiihtodly Kn.uland, Siiain an.l the Dutch were primarily and 
largely responsihle for the introduction and the earlier importa- 
tion of slaves to this country. As Bancroft says, "The .sovereign.s 
of Eno-land and S^iain were the .yreatest slave merchants in the 
world." 

Later on, this country came into i)rominence in the traflfic in 
hun\an hodies and DuBois, the neuro historical writer says, "The 
American slave trade came to he carried on principally hy United 
States capital, in United States ships, officered hy United States 
citizens and under the United States flag." Supporting this. Dr. 
Phillips of Tiilane University in his section of "The South in the 
Building of the Nation," states, "The great volume of the slave 
traffic from the earlier 17th century onward was carried on hy 
English and Yankee vessels, with some comiietition from the French 
and the Dutch.'' 

■The responsibility for this home, or American, participation in 
the slave importing business rests primarily and principally upon 
New England and likewise, very largely, upon New York. It was a 
boast and a taunt of pre-war "days with pro-slavery orators that, 
"The North imported slaves, the South only bought thenr" — and 
historians assert that "there is some truth in the assertion." 

Indeed, it has been Avidely claimed that "No Southern man or 
Southei-n ship ever l)rought a slave to the United States," and while 
this statement is disi)uted and is perhaps not strictly true according 
to the letter, it is undoubedly true in spirit, for the cases where a 
Southern man or Soutliern shi]) could be charged with importing 
slaves are few indeed, while New England, as well as New York, 
were openly and boldly engaged in the traffic, employing hundreds 
of ships in the nefarious business. 

"Slavery," says Plenry Watterson, in the Louisville Courier Jour- 
nal, "existed in the heginning North and South. But the North 
finding slave labor unsuited to its needs and. therefore, unprofitable, 
sold its slaves to the South, not forgetting to pocket the money it 
o-ot for them, hiirinf/ iudrrd al urnil pmfH hroiij/Jil Ihi'iii over from 
A I'rini in r/.<? sh ips. 

Mr. Cecil Chestennan, a distinguished English historian, in his 
"PTiston of the United States" says on this point, "The Xorth had 
been the original slave traders. The African slave trade had been 

11 



their particular industry. Boston itself had risen to prosperity on 
the profits of the abominable traffic.''' 

The Marquis of Lothian, in his "Confederate Secession"' makes 
the statement that "out of 1500 American slave traders, only five 
were from the South," but apparently this statement is contradicted 
later in his volume when he says, "out of 202 slavers entering the 
port of Charleston, S. C, in four years, 1796 to 1799 inclusive, 91 
were English, 88 Yankees, 10 were French and 13 South. * * * " 

Manv indeed are the authorities that support the statement that 
the South did not import slaves. "Slavery.'' says Senator John W. 
Daniel of Mrginia," was thrust on the South, an uninvited, aye, 
a forbidden guest" and Dr. Charles Morris, in his "History of Civ- 
ilization" says "The institution of slavery was not of their making; 
it had been thrust upon their fathers against their violent oppo- 
sition." 

Mrs. Sea, in her l)ook, "The Synoptical Eeview of Slavery," says 
"I have heard the statement made, and gentlemen of the highest 
standing for scholarly attainment given as authority, that no South- 
ern man ever owned a slave ship and that no slave ship handled by 
a Southern man ever brought a cargo of slaves from Africa." 

Dr. Lyon G. Tyler, the scholarly President of William and ^lary 
College, Virginia, and an authority, says, regarding this statement, 
''I am sure it can be said that no Southern man or Southern ship, 
as far as is know, engaged in the slave trade.'" 

Eeferences to Southern ships or Southern men as engaged in the 
slave importing business are at best vague. The famous case of 
the "Wanderer," one of the most noted of slave trading vessels, is 
often mentioned and her ownership is credited to men of Charleston 
and Savannah, but even if this be true she was built in Xew York, 
her captain was a New York man, and a member of the Xew York 
Yacht Club and the "Wanderer" sailed under the proud flag of 
that Club when she went to the Congo after slaves. Her ca])tain 
was later expelled from the club for this offense. 

The fact that there was domestic traffic in slaves, some of this 
domestic traffic being carried on through coastwise trading, seems 
to have confused some and induced them to believe the South en- 
gaged in the slave importing business. On the other hand, the re- 
sponsibility of New England and Xew York for the almost exclu- 
sive monopoly of domestic participation in the slave iin]X)rting 
business is most clearly estalilished. Massachusettes looms largely 
to the front when investigation into this gruesome subject is pur- 
sued. The first slave ship of this country, the "Desire," was fitted 
out in Massachusetts, and set sail for the coast of Africa froni 
Marblehead. Massachusetts was the first of all the colonies to 
authorize the establishment of slavery by statute law, doing this 
some decades bel'oi'e her example was followed by any of the Soiith- 
ern colonies. The first statute establishing slavei'v in America is 
embodied in the Code o( the IMassachusetts Colony in Xew p]ngland, 

12 



adopted in 1G41, and it should be i-oalized that .shive tradinir in 
Massachusetts was not a private enterprise but was carried on by 
authority of tlie Plymouth Rock colony. 

The Puritans early evinced a tendency to enslave Indian tap- 
tives and sell them out of the c-ountry, and from that early day 
down to a ])eric)d j)rattitaily aftei' the War Between the States had 
be<jun (for the last slave ship, the Ni<rhtin<rale, sailing from Boston 
and fitted out there, with !)00 slaves on lioard was captured at the 
mouth of the Congo Piver after the war had started) N^ew England, 
with Massachusetts leading, stood ])reeininent in the slave trade. 

^[uch of the prominence and wealth of these states was derived 
from the slave trade and the connnercial importance of such towns 
as Newport, Phode Island, was based entirely ujion the trafhc. It 
is stated that Faneuil Hall, the famous "Cradle of Liberty"' where 
so many abolition speeches, denunciatory of the South were made, 
was built with money earned in the slave traffic, as Peter Faneuil 
was actively engaged in it. "It Avas a traffic.'' says Di-. Phillips, in 
The Soutli in IJuilding of the jSTation,' "in \vhi( r liigidy honorable 
men like Peter Paneuil engaged and which the I'uritans did not 
condemn in the Colonial period." Stei)hcn Oirard is another prom- 
inent philanthropist of the North who made money in slaves, 
working large nmnbers of them on a Louisiana sugar plantation 
which he owned, and it is asserted that Girard College was built 
with money earned by the labors of these slaves. 

In fact, DuBois asserts that the New England conscience which 
would not allow slavery to flourish on the sacred soil of Massa- 
chusetts did not hesitate to seize the profits resulting from the rape 
of slaves from their African homes and their sale to Southern 
planters. But, according to John Adams, it was not a tender con- 
science but an economic reason upon which the forbidding of slaves 
in Massachusetts was based, for he is quoted as saying, "Argmnent 
might have had some weight in the al)olition of slavery in Massa- 
chusetts, but the real cause was the multiplication of laboring white 
people who no longer would suffer the rich to employ these sable 
rivals so much to their injury." Thomas Jefferson, who had intro- 
duced a scathing denunciation of, and protest against, the slave 
trade in the Declaration of Independence, withdrew it upon the 
insistence of Adams and other New Englanders, and he indulges in 
the following little bit of sarcasm at their expense, "our Northern 
friends who were tender under these censures, for. though their 
people have very few slaves, yet they had been considerable carriers 
of them to others." 

Economic reasons were the base of abolition of slavery in New 
Emzland. There is abundance of record to show dissatisfaction 
with negro labor, who were stated to be "eye servants, great thieves, 
much addicted to lying and stealing," ami the sujieriority of white 
labor was brought ])rominently forward. Furthermore, tlie mor- 
tality of the negroes in the cold New j-jigland climate was great 

13 



and figures were brought forwai'd to show how their importation 
into the section was not "profital)Ie.'" Governor Dudley in a formal 
report in 1708 stated "negroes have been found unprofitable invest- 
ments, the planters preferring white servants." 

Boston was all along prominent in the slave trade^ the "Conti- 
nental Monthly" of Xew York, as late as January, 1862, being 
quoted as saying, "The city of Xew York has been until late (18fi2) 
the pi'incit)al port of the world for this infamous traffic, the cities of 
Portland and Boston Ijeing only second to her in that distinction." 
"Slave dealers," it continues, "added much to the wealth of our 
metropolis." 

Vessels from Massachusetts, Ehode Island, Connecticut, and Xew 
Hampshire were early and largely engaged in the slave trade, and 
it is a very significant fact that while duties, more or less heavy, 
were imposed upon the imported slaves in Southern harbors, and 
other har1)ors of the country, the ]K)rts of Xew England were offered 
as a free exchange mart for slavers. 

Xew England citizens were traders by instinct and profession. 
and with the birth of commerce in the Xew World they eageidy 
turned to the high profits of the African slave trade and made it a 
regular business. The "Hartford Courant" in an issue of July, 
1916, said, "Xorthern rum had much to do with the extension of 
slavery in the South. Many people in this state (Connecticut) as 
well as in Boston, made snug fortmies for themselves by sending 
rum to Africa to l)e exchanged for slaves and then selling the slaves 
to the planters of Southern states." 

TJhode Island at an early date had 150 vessels engaged in the slave 
trade, wiiilc at a later date, when Xew York had loomed to the front 
of tlie trade, the Xew York "Journal of Commerce" is quoted as 
saying, "Few of onr readers are aware of the extent to which this 
infernal traffic is carried on by vessels clearing from Xew York and 
down town merchants of wealth and res])ectal)ility are engaged ex- 
tensively in linyiiig and selling;' African lU'groes. and have been for 
an indelinite nundiei' of yeai's." 

As early as 1711 a sla\(' iiiaiket was established in New Yoi'k 
City in tbe neigb^oi'lmod of Wall sti'eet where sbncs from .\frica 
were l»i'()Uglit to supply the Soutlieni market.. There was another 
prominent slave market in IJoston. The slaves were hurried into 
the South as fast as possiljle as hundreds died from cold and ex- 
posui'e and the sudden change from a tropic African climate to a 
l)leak Xortbei-n temperature. The United States Dept. Mai'shall for 
that Xew ^'oi'k district reported in 1856 that "the business of 
fitting out slavers was mner prosecuted with greater energy than at 
])reseiit."' In a yeai' and a half ])receding the War Between the 
States oighty-tive sla\c trading vessels are reported as fitting out 
in Xew York harbor and DuBois writes that, "from 1850 to 1860 
the fitting out of slavers l)ecame a flourishing business in the 
Tnited States and centered in Xew York City." 

14 



Althouuli .MasscU-liusetts and Now York wtTc thus proiniiiont in 
the business of enslaviiitj and ini])orti]ig Afrieans and sellinii; them 
to South Ameriea and the Southern colonies, and hiter the Southern 
states in the Union, other parts of Xew England took most promi- 
nent part in the slave trade. Indeed, in the ''"Reminiscenses of 
Samuel Hopkins,'" lihode Tslan<l is said to have l)een "more deeply 
interested in the slave trade than any other colony in Xew England 
and lias enslaved more Africans." 

Thus beginning with that first slave ship of this country, the 
"Desire" of Marblehead, Mass., the slave trade flourished in Xew 
England and New York. The favorite method was to exchange 
rum for negroes and to sell the negroes to the Southern plantations. 
Federal laws were powerless to hold in check the keenness for this 
prolitable trafTic in human flesh. As late as IRaO, the noted slave 
sniuiigler. Diakc, who flourished and operated along the T.ulf Coast, 
is reported to have said, "Slave trading is growing more profitable 
every year, and if you should hang all the Yankee merchants en- 
gaged in it, hundreds more would take their places." 

The outlawing of the traffic seemed but to stimulate it. From 
the very inception of the institution of slavery in this country there 
was ])rotest and action against it throughout the Southern colonies. 
The vigorous action of Virginia and her protests to the royal gov- 
ernment to prohibit the further importation of slaves to her terri- 
tory are well known. We have seen how Jefferson introduced into 
the Declaration of Independence a i)rotest against the slave trade 
which he withdrew at the behest of Xew England. Every promi- 
nent man in Virginia at this period was in favor of gradual emanci- 
pation and there were more than five times as many members of 
abolition societies in the South than in the North. Only with the 
rise of the rabid abolitionists of Xew England and their fierce de- 
nunciations of the South did the South abandon hope of gradual 
emancipation. Touching this. Mr. Cecil Chesterman, (pioted above, 
states verv pointedlv in his "History of the Fiiited States.'" "what 
could exceed the effrontery of men."" asked the Southerner, "who 
reproach us with grave personal sin in owning property which they 
themslves sold us and the price of which is at this moment in their 
pockets?" Virginia legislated against slavery over a score of times; 
South Carol imrprf'tosted against it as early as n2T. and in Georgia 
there was absolute prohil)ition of it by law. Let it l)e rememliered 
that when the Xational Government took action and the slavery 
prohibition laws of Congress went into effect in ISOS. every South- 
ern state had prohibited it. 

But, as stated, the outlawing of the traffic seemed l)ut to stimulate 
it. In the earlier years of the UHh century thousands of slaves 
were imported into'this country. In the year ISl!), Gen. .laines 
Talmadsie. sjieaking in the House of I?epresentatives, declared: "It 
is a well known fact that about 1 l,<><)() slaves have been brought into 
our country this year." And Sergeant, of Tennsylvania. said: "It 

15 



is notorious that in spite of the utmost vigilance that can be em- 
ployed, African negroes are clandestinely brought in and sold as 
slaves." 

This "vigilance" he speaks of, however, was much ridiculed by 
others, and it was openly hinted that the efforts of the Federal 
authorities to suppress the trade, even the look-out for slavers along 
the African coast as conducted by vessels of the United States Navy, 
were merely perfunctory, Blake in his "History of Slavery and the 
Slave Trade," published in 1857, says: "It is stated upon good 
authority that in 1844 more slaves were carried away from Africa 
in ships than in 1744 when the trade was legal and in full vigor;" 
while in the year immediately preceding the opening of the War 
Between the States, John C. Underwood is quoted as writing to the 
Xew York Tribune : "I have ample evidence of the fact that the 
reopening of the African slave trade is an accomplished fact and 
the traffic is brisk." Not only was the traffic brisk with the United 
States but thousands of slaves were being smuggled into Brazil. 

Southern mcmljers of Congress complained of the violations of 
the law and the illegal importation of slaves into their territory. 
Smith, of South Carolina, said on the floor of Congress in 1819 : 
"Our Northern friends are not afraid to furnish the Southern 
States with Africans;" and in 1819, Middleton, of South Carolina, 
and Wright, of Virginia, estimated the illicit introduction of 
slaves at from 1300 to 1500 respectively. 

There is interest in the striking fact that one year before the 
outbreak of the War Between the States, and at the time when the 
rabid abolitionists of New England and the North were most vigor- 
ous in their denunciations of the South and the slave holders, there 
were in Massachusetts only 9000 free negroes, while in Virginia 
there were 53,000 of these negi'oes, free, and able to go where they 
pleased : and it is significant that about as man}' free negroes chose 
to live in Southern slave holding states as dwelt in Northern states; 
and many of these free negroes owned slaves themselves and were 
well-to-do citizens. In the city of Charleston, S. C, some three 
hundred free negroes owned slaves themselves. 

In closing this article the following letter, which appeared in the 
columns of the New Orleans Picayune years ago, may be of in- 
terest : 

"My father, Capt. John .Tulius Guthrie, then of the United States Xavy, 
while executive officer of the sk)op of war "Saratoga" on April 21st. 1861, 
captured at the mouth of the Congo River, on the west coast of Africa, 
the slave ship 'Nightingale' with 900 slaves aboard. I'he slaver was 
owned, manned and ecpiipiu'd in the city of Boston, Mass., and in refer- 
ence to the date it will ajipear that her capture was after the assault on 
Fort Sumter and the Baltimore riot consequent upon the passage of the 
6th Massachusetts Regiment through the city. This was the last slaver 
ca])utrcd by an American war ship and as my father soon after resigned 
and went in to the Confederate service, her ca])taiii and owners were never 
brought to trial. All this is a matter of record on file at the Navy Depart- 

16 



ment in Washington. Thus it will l)e seen that the last captmi" of a 
slaver was by a Southern officer and the good peojjle of Massacliusetts 
were ngaged in (liis nefarious business at the beginning of i>ur unliaj)py 
war." 

(Signed) .1. Julius Guthrie, 

Portsmouth. Va. 

Too Iou^j: has the South had tlie odiuin of .slavery forced upon her. 
With the iiKstitutiuu tlirust upon her against her protest, the slaves 
flourished in her boundaries on account of clinuite, and economic 
conditions favored the spread of the institution itself. The facts 
set forth above indicate the innocence of the South in foisting this 
feature upon our national life, as well as her freedom from guilt in 
the continued importation of slaves into this country. While no 
claim is made for special virtue in that the South did not engage 
in the slave importing business as the North did, yet the facts as 
they exist are to her credit. With the facts in her favor, the South 
sits still under the false indictments constantly made against her by 
the section of our country most I'esponsible i'or the whole trouble. 
Willing to abide by the verdict of posterity, if the verdict is based 
u]K)n the truth, and not upon the false statements of Northern his- 
torians, writers and speakers, and willing to accept her share, her 
full share of due res])onsibility. this section, in justice to lier dead 
who died gloriously in a maligned cause, and to her unborn chil- 
dren, inheritors of a glorious heritage, must set forth to the world 
the facts as they are, neither tainted with injustice to others nor 
burdened with hypocritical claims of righteou.sness for herself; and 
these facts will estai)lish her in the proud ]X)sition to which she has 
all along been entitled among the pe()])le of the earth. 



17 



Treatment of Prisoners in the 
Confederacy 

By Matthew Page Andrews 
Author ol" History of the United States. Dixie Book of Days, ka, ka. 

Only a generation ago, Eaphael Semmes, commander of the Con- 
federate warship Alabama, was widely advertised as a "pirate" and 
Eol)ert E. Lee was stigmatized as a "traitor." Thousands of young 
Americans were taught so to regard these Southern leaders. Xow, 
however, these terms are nearly obsolete ; while many Xorthern his- 
torians, such as Charles Francis Adams, who fought on the Federal 
side in the War of Secession, aiid Ganuiliel Bradford, who grow 
up after the war, have delighted in honoring Lee and other South- 
ern leaders as Americans whose character and achievements are the 
ennobling heritage of a united Xation. 

It was more or less natural that Americans should have been led 
astray of the truth in the heat of sectional strife and partisan ex- 
pression. Misconceptions have arisen out of every war. In fifty 
years, however. Americans have made greater progress in overcom- 
ing war |n-('ju(lic('s than tlie pcojjlc of otlicr l.iiids in twice or thrice 
that period. 

'^rhis is cncon raging, yet the I'ac-t that tlie greater nund)ei' of our 
textl)0oks, and consequently oui' schools, teach that "the cause for 
which the South fought was imwoi'tby ;"" that the Southern leaders 
"were laboring under some of tlio niost cui'ious hallucinations which 
a student of history meets in the whole course of his researches;" 
and Ihat "the South was the clianipiun of the detested institution of 
slavery," indicates a lamentable state of historical ignorance 
on the part of those who should know better. The characters of the 
Sontbern leaders are no longer aspersed Imt their iiinlirr.<t are he- 
siiiifi hcil (ir ch/inlrd and tbeir cause unjustU' condeinne(| because it 
is still widely misunderstood.* 

Furtbernioi'e. since the lieginning of the \\'oi-|(l War (d' 1!»1 I. the 
conduct of the Prussians, together with the character of theii" cause, 
has been coin])ared with the charactei' of the Confederate conduct 
of The \\:w (d' Secession, togethei- with the cause and chai-actcr of 
Southeni statesMicn. Iie])utahle magazines of wide cii'cuhition and 
writers (d' prominence ha\c compared ('onfederate treatment of 
])risoners with Prussian outrages in Pelgium and I'laiice. .Vmei'i- 
can newspapers also have ])rinted literally thousands of sucli com- 
parative references. Fortunately, nine-tenths of these com])arisons 

*T]ipre(lih1p as it may seom. Ihoso oiiotations arc takeii from throe of the 
most widely nsod history text-liooks in America at tlio ])reseiit time. They 
have been written I)y men lionoicd witli biyli jiositions in tlie teacliinjj 
profession. 

18 



have Ik'c'M made througli i<iiK)raiu-e of the facts and not through any 
malicious desire of the authors to deJ'ame the fair name of a single 
fellow-American on the Confederate side or the "lost cause" which 
he represented with unsurpassed devotion and valor. 

Side by side with these accusations, in some cases, generous praise 
is bestowed upon the former "pirate" Semnies as having furnished 
a model for warfare on the high seas; and it is freely stated that 
his observance of all the ivquirements of international custom and 
of the dictates of humanity in civilized warfare held not only to the 
letter, hut also to the full spirit of the law. It is not denied, also, 
that Lee, the Confederate chieftain and quondam "traitor" has 
offered the world the noblest example of orders of conduct for an 
army in the enemy's country that all history can show, and that 
these orders were also carried out "even to the protection of a 
farmer's fence rails I" The Boston Transcript, for example, took 
occasion, in 1917, to publish these orders in full. 

Nevertheless, in regard to the treatment of pi-isoners, the sweep- 
ing condemnation of James (i. Blaine, delivered in an outburst of 
war-inspired and partisan condemnation of the South is still, in a 
general way. believed by Americans who have, of late, been echoing 
them, although in milder terms and /'// limilatwn of the number of 
ihose lieJd In have been (luiliji. Mr. lihtine declared some ten years 
after the war: "Mr. Davis [President of the Confederate States] 
was the author, knowingly, delibei'ately, guiltily, and willfully, of 
the gigantic murder and ci'ime at Andersonville. And T here, before 
God measuriiif/ mi/ irords. l-noiriiig Iheir full extent and import 
declare that neither the deeds of the Duke of .\lva in the low 
countries, nor the massacre of Saint P)ai'tholoniew, nor the thumb 
screws and engines of torture of the S])anish Inquisition, begin to 
compare in atrocity with the hideous crimes of Andersonville.'* 

Historians do not now accept this statement as true, solemnly 
made as it was hy a man who, a few years later, l)arely missed elec- 
tion to the highest office in the gift of the people of the United 
States. Furthermore, American historians, even if inclined to bias, 
do not now go into any detail in the matter of these charges. They 
refer the reader, however, to a mass of matter the major part of 
which is as false today as when .lames ({. Blaine based uiion it his 
colossal libel of Jefferson Davis and the military and civil autliori- 
ties of the Southern Coiifcilcracv. .\s ;d)o\c stntctl. the so-called 
"general" historian has dro|)])c(l this nnittci- in detail, though ^fr. 
Blaine exclaimed dramatically that it woidd remain as the "blackest 
page" recorded in the annals of all time.* On the other hand, 

*.T;niips Ford Kliodes, for oxaiiiplo. (Vol. V. i)p. 4S.3-.t1.5) lias dono bettor 
than his tontpinporarios in this respect : and tlic Photofrraphic TTisldrv of 
the Civil War presents an even more extended revi<'\v. Klscwhere. Hliodes 
draws what one may call the "siunilicantly provincial and incomitlete" con- 
elusion, (Vol. VI. ]). 20. italics inserted): 'Now that the Sonthern people 
were rid of tlie incuhns of slavery tlxir moral ^landardf! ircrr Ihr xnnir as 
those at the North; and they felt that they were amenahle to the pultlic 
opinion of 4;lie enlijihieiied world." 

19 



innumerable monographs have been written upon this subject, four- 
fifths of which are either false per se, or else based on false evidence 
such as that which has misled so many Americans, from the time of 
James G. Blaine and contemporary historians, to editors of and 
writers in magazines and newspapers of the second decade in the 
twentieth century. With this one notable exception, American his- 
tory is rapidly freeing its narrative of misconception in all of its 
phases. It is here that we now find the last great stronghold of sec- 
tional misconception. 

if four-fiftlis of the monographs on prison life in the South are 
false per se, or based on false evidence, it follows that one-fifth are 
true or approximately so. The writer has had the privilege of 
knowing personally a distinguished Union Veteran who sutfered 
privations and hardships at Libby Prison. Published in 1912, his 
story, as it att'ects his personal experiences, is doubtless true in every 
respect; yet this same good American helped to publish simultan- 
eously another volume by one of his comrades that is a tissue of 
falsehood and slander from beginning to end. The veracious author 
seemed to take his mendacious comrade at his face value, and he 
advertised as worthy history a gross historical libel.* 

Again with reference to a portion of the truthful lifth part of 
the testimony in monographs or s])ecial articles, it should be said 
that a concerted attempt has apparently l)een made by certain in- 
ierestd individuals and groups to cry down, suppress, or defame the 
authors of these monographs. The average good American citizen, 
•who likes to believe that the people of one section "about average 
Tip to" the people of another, is moved to amazement at the extreme 
violence of the attacks made upon men who, on this one subject, 
would say even the least in defense of their former opponents. 
'^'God knows Ave suffered there.'" said one of the ex-prisoners of An- 



*'riiis viciou.sly false voluiiie revives the following post-bellum slander 
on tlie officers in Forrest's eomniand at Fort Pillow: "The rebels began 
an indiscriminate slaughter, sparing neither age nor sex. white nor black, 
soldier nor civilian. The officers and men seemed to vie with each other 
in the work; men. women, and even children were deliberately shot down, 
Ijeaten and hacked with sabres. Some of the children, not more than ten 
Tears old, were forced to stand and face their murderers while being shot: 
the sick and wounded were butchered without mercy, the rebels entering 
the iios])ital and diaggiiig tliem out to be sliot, or killing them as they lay 
Tinable to otl'er resistance. Numbers of our men were collected in lines or 
groups and deliberately shot; some were shot in the river: some on the 
bank, and tlie ixxlies of the latter, many yet living, were kicked into the 
river. The huts and tents where the wounded had sought shelter were set 
on fire, both that night and the next morning, while the wounded were 
dtill in them, and those who tried to get out were shot. One man was 
fastened to the floor of a tent by nails through his clothing and then 
burned, and one was similarly nailed to the side of a building and then 
burned. These deeds were renewed the next morning when any wounded 
who still lived were sought out and shot." 

20 



(Ici'SdiiN illc, "liut \vc foiiiiil (lilt tliiit the ( '(111 fcik' rati' solilicr had our 
fare and dl'tcii less, ami lie was oftcii as slidcless as wo. in tiiiic. Iic- 
canu'. \\\' were the woi'so dlT t-liioHy bwausi' of cnfoivt'd conline- 
iiK'iit, hope dt'rcrred, and lou^in^- for home and freedom." Men who 
have made sueli statement? as these or wlio liave (lefen(h'd their 
former captors and relldw-eoiiiitrynu'n from the char-re of (hdihcrate 
cruelty. Iia\c lieen hitterly attacked in (iiMiid Army Posts — not hy 
men of simihir liberal ideals, l)ut l»y narrow-minded men who were 
otherwise <iood citizens and hy l)oiinty-jum})ers and deserters wlio 
made it t]ieir hnsiness to fan the flames of sectional ])assion so tliat 
the ])uhlic Wdtild cdntiniic tn support them in the way wliicli lias 
heen e.\))osed hy Charles Francis Adams. Tn some c-ases, the thou.irlit 
of all this false testimony wei,ahed like a liea\y load npon the con- 
sciences of patriotic Union \'eterans who loved their whole country 
and honoi'ed their fornuM' Confederate foes as o|)ponents worthy 
of their steel. One (if these incii who was thus moved to write what 
he held to he true had hiiiii" looked forward to the honor of com- 
manding:- his l)e)iartiiieiit of the Grand Army (if the IJepiihlic. His 
])ul)lislu'd iiarrati\c defendiiiii- the motives of his foi-mer captors 
cdst liiiii this lidiKir. even though it contained iid sin<ile word or 
phrase that ivllected unfavorably u|»on the cause of the Xorth. An 
liistorian who undertook to inquire about the veracity of the narra- 
tive was told by well-meaning- nu>n across the Cdiitinent from the 
author that "'the book was untrustworthy"" and that the author was 
unreliable. A quiet and careful investijration was, however, made 
hy him into the character and career of the "witness," and the favor- 
able testimony of those in a jiosition to kiidw him best in all his 
relations led the historian to ])Iace the i:-i-eatest cdiilidence in his 
testimony.* 

The char<>es jireferivd a.uainst the authorities of the Confederacy 
were, for several years, made the most imjiortant subject midei- con- 
sideration by the peo]»le and excn the i;(i\eiiiment of the United 
States. During that period, the ina.iinitudc and violenci' of the ac- 

*Tlie historian ei)rros])()ii(le(l with tliis Veteran's friends and ae(]Uiint- 
anees and interviewed others. One of iluni. a \v<dl-known and lionored 
Jndj^i' wrote. ^lay 7. liMT: ■"Slinrtly aflcr tlic pidilieation of liis hook llie 

firand Army of the Ke]inl)li(' n;et at and eonsidcrihle fcelinp 

was expressed hy . . . . *s comrades tliere. Some disa<;ree(l with liim 
radically and the feelinji aj^ainst him was so intense that it prevented 
his election as Department Commander. lie eertainly wonld have lieen 
elected inianimously if it had not hccii f(n- the )inhlicali<in of his iiirk. At 

the time I was hohlinj; Court in .... instead of .hid<;e 

the resident .T\ide;e tiiere. and rememher lalkin;^ with .... after the 
election. He said he rej;retted that his comrades took (he attitude they did 
hut nevertheless he had not stated anythinjr i)Ul the truth in his hnok and 
if it had cost him one of liis life's amhitions he could (Uily reuret the 
misfiuided attitude of his fellows, hut he did not rejiret doinjr justice to a 
man to whom he tlion.uht i^rave injustice had heen done." [Tn the ahovo 
(|notafion. names (if individual- are not <riveii for fear of causin<j; hitter 
attack.'^ hy partisans on others. All names and correspoiKh'iice aic on lile, 
and may he pnhlished later.l 

21 



cusations obscured much more weighty and serious problems and 
phiced the South on the defensive, Ijecause it was not the better 
element in the North but the radical and partisan minority that 
had, for the moment, the ear of the country and the world. Secre- 
tary Stanton used the following language in one of the official 
reports of the Federal Government: "Tlie enormity of the crime 
committed hy the Eeheh towards our prisoners for the last several 
months is not known or realized by our people, and cannot but fill 
with horror the civilized world when the facts are fully revealed. 
There appears to have been a iJcIiberate system of savage and bar- 
barous treatment and starvaliun. the result of which will be that 
few, (if any) of the prisoners that have been in their hands during 
the past winter will ever again be in a condition to render any ser- 
vice, or even to enjoy life." At the same time, the United States 
Sanitary Commission declared that: "The evidence proves, beyond 
all manner of doiiht. a delerDiinatlon on Ihe part of the Rebel 
mithorities, deliberately and persistently practiced for a long time 
past, to subject those of our soldiers who have been so unfortunate 
as to fall into their hands to a system of treatment which has re- 
sulted in reducing many of those who have survived and been per- 
mitted to I'ctiini to lis to ;i coiidit ion, both ]ihysically and tnontally, 

whicli no language we can use can adequately descrilio 

The conclusion is unavoi(lal)le, therefore, that these pri\ations and 
suffei'ings hare been designedly inflicted hy the military and (dher 
aattiorilics of the liebel Government, and could not hare been due 
to causes irhich such authorities could not control." 

A widely circulated volume by n former prisoner at Andersouville, 
the largest of tlie Confederate luison camps, contains the following 
statement: "Inside of this inclosure, thirteen thousand, two liun- 
dred and fifty-three ITnion soldiers perished. There is no s])ot on 
the face of the earth Avhere man's inhumanity to man was nioi'e 
fully demonstrated than in this terrible ])lace. and tlic name of 
Andersouville will l)c a dark s))ot on American ci\ilization for 
centuries to conic. . . . To Jefferson Davis, liis caliinct ad- 
visers, and to the (lemons wlioin they sent to these ])i'isons to carry 
out theii' (lc\ilisli plans, and who ajijiear to liave been well adapted 
for that kind of work, belongs the infamy of perpetrating one of 
the most horrible crimes known in the history of the world, and one 
which will fori'ver remain a blot ami a stigma on that ])age of oui' 

coiinti'v's history \nd in all tlie Southern ]irisons, as 

near as could be ascertaine(|, alioiit ()."), (ton men fell vi(-tims to rebel 
barbarity. Who can doubt but that it was a fairlv concocted scheme 
of their captors to desti'oy tbcMii. and llinl . too. in the most horrible 
manner."" 

The othcial l?e))ort of the Coinmittee in Congress on the conduct 
of the war contains the following statement: "The subse(|uent 
history of .\nderson\ ille lias startled and shocked the world with 
a tale of horroi', of woe. and death before unheard and unknown 



to civilization. Xo pen can (Iosci-jIk', no ])aintcr sketcli. no iniaj^i- 
nation compi't'liend its fearful and unuiteral)le ini(|uity. It would 
seem that the concentrated madness of earth and hell had found 
its final lodii'inent in lite hrensis of Ihosc who iiuiui/uniled (he Tie- 
hellion iind conl rollcil llic poliri/ of llie Confedenile (/overnnieni . 
and that llic /irison al A ndersonville liad been selecled for the most 
terrihle liunian sacrilirc which the world had ever seen. Into its 
narrow walls wei'e crowded thirty-five thousand men. nniny of theni 
tlie bravest and best, the most devoted and heroic «•!' tliose ^rand 
armies which carried the fla*,' of their country to (inal victoi'y. For 
lonii' and weaiT months here they sulfered, maddened, were mur- 
dered and died . . . these men, these heroes, born in the imaicc 
of God, thus croLK-liing and Avrithin<j: in their terril)le torture and 
calculating harbarily, stand forth in history as a monument of the 
surpassing horrors of Anderson ville as it shall be seen and read in 
all future time, realizing in the studied torments of their prison 
house the ideal of Dante's Inferno and Jlilton's Hell." 

Those historians who have at all investigated the mattei- regard 
such statements as ])artisan and untrue; init many historical writers 
who have not so investigated ])er])etuate in modified form, these 
same falsehoods. When, for instance, so great a periodical as Col- 
lier's Weekly descends to such sectionalism, it does so in ignorance 
and not in malice. For this reason, perhaps, any such injustice as 
the following is more to be deplored. In its issue of February 17, 
11)17, the leading editorial article is entitled "The Morals of 
Slavery," in which a resume is given of Prussian outrages in Bel- 
gium under Yon Bissing. The writer, who may have been an 
occasional contributor of national and international ])roininence, 
draws the following comparison, italics inserted : 

"The only prototype that the history of our own country affords 
for General Von Bissing is Captain Henry Wirz, commanding offi- 
cer of Andersonville prison. He pleaded 'military and economic 
necessity' as an e.rcvse for liis acts, and in a general way defended 
/?w cruellies with the same arguments that have been advanced by 
the German Government in defending the invasion of Belgium, the 
shooting of hostages, and the merciless exploitation of the labor and 
resources of the country. He acted under orders: he did only what 
conditions compelled him to do. //(".s- defense iras supremely loyicat 
to minds tlial had yroirn UderanI of the harshness of irar. But even 
at a time when leniency was t-xcrcised in the treatment of spies, 
blockade runnei's. jU'ivateersmcn. and freebooters, the Union Gov- 
ernment drew the line at Wirz's otfcnses. The severe logician was 
tried in IHC") by a military commission and promptly hanged. It 
is to his credit that he did not attempt to jusify his »-ruelty to the 
prisoners by pleading his intention of improving their morals.'' 

Collier's Weekly is, perhaps, the most popular of the publica- 
tions t*iat reprinted, with variations, an ancient error. The history 
of the historical statement of the prison charges runs from the 

23 



early "conviction of direct coini)licity"" on the part of id] ihe riril 
and military auihorilies of the Confederacy to the hidirect charge 
against them through Captain W'irz. a poor sul)ordinate of Swiss 
hirth, who was one of the coniniaiKhmts at the Andersonville prison. 
Hini his accusers lianged after the most unjust trial that this coun- 
try has ever kno^^ni. As late as 1917, the distinguished editor of 
"American State Trials" and the Vice-President of the Inter- 
national Law Association was so far led astray by the "evidence" 
as to i)iT'])are a ])reface to the volume, which ivas separately printed 
and liniiliilcd, a])proving tlie t-harges brought against Wirz as pro- 
perly substantiated.* 

It is recognized liy all who ha\e carefully investigated the prison 
question that the civil and military Committees and Commissions 
appointed under .strongly paitisan auspices to look into the ])rison 
question rendered reports that are now known to be false. Shortly 
afterwards, Southern officials, hampered as they wei'e at that time, 
made replies to these accusations and published some of tlicm. 
These replies of the Southern officials contend: 

(1) That althougli it is not denied that there was terrible suf- 
fering and great mortality in Confederate prisons, tliis was due to 
circumstances beyond their control. 

(2) That if the death rate l>e adduced as "circumstantial evi- 
dence of harhai'ity," the rate was as high or even higher in the 
majority of tlu' |»risons u\ the .XOrth. where there was an abundance 
of food and where .shelter could easily be provided.** 

*It must l)p rpTiiembprod that tliis subordinate offioor was convicted of 
conspii iiifi iri/li Con federate ant liorit ies in the crimes alh'<ied to liave lieen 
committed. 

*"'i"he Confederate prisoners, including' the three thousand ollicers con- 
fineil at -lolmson's Island suffered terrible tortures from both cold and 
hun<;er. Tlieir rations wtMc, by ordei' of the Federal authorities, cut down 
to a daily portion of onedialf a loaf of hard bread, and a small ])iece of 
salt ])ork, \\liich was served at noon. At Fort Delaware, in the summer 
of lS(i4, the rations were reduced to two crackers, together with an inch 
stpiare of pickled meat and a cu]) of weak coffee. The only other meal of 
the day ccmsisted of two crackers with a cu]) of very weak bean sou|). Oc- 
casionally a (piarter of a loaf of light bread was substituted for the crackers^. 
The crackei's weic oten filled with \\i)rni>. wliicli many of the ])risoners 
ate with a view to sustaining life. hi the enldest weather two busluds 
of coal a day were allowecl eaeli ■■barracks'" of .■{■2(1 men. Tliis supply of 
fuel lasted l)ut a jiortioii of the twenty-four hours. llos|)ital service 
was so l)ad at this prison that many of tlie men ))referred to sutfer ami die 
among their friends in the "layers" of superimjxjsed iiard plank bunks. 
Offieial figures given (mt by Secretary Stanton show that 2ti.4.'?(i Confed- 
erates died in Northern i)risons. Fach man was allowed one blanket or 
an overcoiit. Prisoners could not have both. They were de])rive(l of money 
and allowed a limited amount of sutler's checks with whicli they could 
buy tobacco, etc.. but no additional food. Tlie dead, with tiieii- Jiodies 
stripped of ch>thing. were thrown into long ditches; .so tjiat years after- 
wards a Committee authorized by Congress could Jiot determine the dead 
or put up tombstones. 

On the other hand, it is good to record that Confederate e\-])risoners 
themselves, out of llieir poverty, erected a nieniorial to Colonel Kicliard 

24 



('.]) Tlmt ill the South the sjiiiic rations wciv ^ivcii the |iiisoiii'rs 
ami t lie unai'ds ; hut that \ari('ty in food could not 1k' had or trans- 
ported on tho broken-down railway systciii of a iion-nianuracturin^ 
country, which system coulil not or did not |iro\ide sullicient clothes 
and food e\en I'oi' the ('onfederate soldiei's in the lield.* 

(t) That the Confederacy had ari'aiiiicd for the exchan^^' (d' 
prisonei-s hy a special cartel, which carti'l was dcliherately disre- 
garded hy the Kedei-al authorities.** 

( .") ) That they oll'ei'ed to pci'mit l''ederal Surgeons to l)ring medi- 
cal 8Uj)i)lies to the prisonei's, which olTer was not accepted. 

(6) That, as the needs of the prisoncis increased, they o[1'ere(| to 
buy (finally with cotton oi- with gold) supplies for the pi'isoners, 
which otler was ignored. 

Owen, commandant at Camp Morton, Indiana. Tliis noble man did all he 
could to mitiyate the hardshijis of ])ris(m life, and scores of Confederate 
prisoners continetl there and transferreil to other prisons have borne pa- 
thetic ti'stiinony to his allowance of bolli overcoats and blankets (two). 
The rations were limited under conditions beyond the control of t'ohniel 
Owen, but tiiese were "nicrcifnlly chanjieil" in didcr to ])revent the rava^'es 
of scurvy. 

■The point as to idrivlji in fou<l is very important ; for the hu-k of a 
wholesome variety caused certain disea.ses amou'i the prisoners not suH'<'red 
by the j;uards and Confederate soldiers fed on tlie same rations. The 
forii'er. foi' exam])U', could not, in many cases, eat tlie nnlioltecl meal to 
which the Southerner was accustomed. This was parlicularly true of the 
grent numlier of (ierman and other prisoners of forei<:n l)irth. of whom 
there were many thousands in the Soutlu-rn ])risons. The first jiroup of 
prisoners sent to Andersonville were several hundred foreigners. A large 
number of these foreigiuMs and many native Americans from the X(Utiiern 
States couTd not at lirsl cut this uni)olted meal without experiencing more 
or less serious digestixc troul)lf w liich left tiiem in a dangerously weakened 
condition. Towards llu- chise of tlie war a trainload of l-'eihual prison<'rs 
northward bound halted by tho side of another train returning Confech'rate 
prisoiu'rs to the South. 'I he soldiei-s leaned from the windows of liieir 
coaches and l)antered each other. The "Yanks" hurled at the "IJebs" some 
pieces of the (!es])ised "ct)rn j)ones'' which were to lie exhilnted as |)roof 
of the baibarity of "Rebel" fare. To their surprise the half-starved 
"Rebel" ])risoners seized these rejected "Rebel" rations, ate them raven- 
ously, and yelled for more. 

In lOlS, under the caption, 'How lorn may ln'lp win the War." the 
Cnited States Food Administration sent out an advertisenu-nt which reads: 
■\\'hen we use more corn, the Allies — our associates in the war — can use 
more wheat. Tli< if cmi iiol iisr cm ii iiiiitl iiixtciiil of irliral in their (hiilji 
did. (IN Iff tin, hrcanxc ncilln r IIk ir <-<(o/..v nor their ii/iiK'titrs arr <til<iiil<il 
to it." 

**Thc older partisan account^ ami present conparisons based upon the 
accounts atti'mjit to explain this i)y tiie statement that the Confederates 
refused exchange to negroes; but this point was brought uji long after the 
cartel was systematically disregarded. There is an abundance of proof of 
this. The following extract from a letter from (ieneral C. S. (;rant to 
General H. V. Hutler. ISth August. lS(i4. over a year after the terms of the 
cartel were violated, is indicative of the attitude of the highest Federal 
otlicer towards exciumge: "It is hard." wrote (Jrant. "on our men in 
Southern prisons not to ex<'hange them, but it i^ hinnanitv to those left 
in tiie ranks to light our battles." 

25 



(7) That medicines liad been treated by the Federal Government 
as contrahantJ of war, so that the people of the South were often 
deprived of iicee-ssary remedies, not only for theii- own sick and 
wounded, but the prisoners as well. 

(8) That prior to the period of the greatest mortality at An- 
dersonville, the Confederate authorities offered to release thousands 
of prisoners, ivitliout requiriny any equivalent in exchange if the 
Federal Government would provide transportation for them. This 
offer was not accepted by the Federal Government until too late to 
"save the lives of thousands of those who died. 

(!) ) That the control of the prisons in the Xorth was turiied over 
by Secretary Stanton and the vindictive and partisan men, who 
were later responsible also for the crimes of Beconstruction, to the 
lowest element of an alien population and to negro guards of a 
criminal type; and that such men as President Lincln, Seward, 
McClellan and the best people of the Xorth were intentionally kept 
in ignorance of conditions in Northern prisons while officially fur- 
nished with stories as to "the deliberate cruelties" practiced in the 
South.* 

General Robert E. Lee, who, for a time, was held as /Kirliceps 
cnnivni,'< in the alleged wholesale barbarity, but whoso word has 
never been found to be false, says of Libby and Belle Isle: "I 
never knew that any cruelty was practiced, and I have no reason to 
believe that it was practiced. I can believe, and have reason to 
believe, that privations may have been experienced by the prisoners 
because I know that provision and shelter could tiol tie provided 
for them." Again he stated, in April. isr>7. that "Tlic laws of the 
C^onfederate Congress and tlic orders of the \\';\v Deicirtinciit di- 
rected that the rations furnished prisoners of war should l)e the 
same in quantity and quality as those furnished enlisted men in the 
army of the Confederacy, and that the hospitals for prisoners should 

*This Confedorat*' defense against tlic cliaiue of wliolesale and deliberate 
cruelty to prisoners is amply sustained by tlie historical evidence at hand. 
The impartial historian, looking for all the salient facts, does find, however, 
as a kind of flaw in tne fraid<ness of the Confed<'rate statement, admissions 
on the j)art of repHfahlc (nitlwrUu s that there was evidence of executive 
failure in the commissary department. It may be said, however, that the 
same failure, in a more exaggerated form, was evident in the supply de- 
partment of the Army of Northern Virginia. The immediate cause of the 
surrender of fieneral Lee was the failure of supjiort on the jiart of his 
food trains. 

Although it is knoimi that Abraham Lincoln loas told of the alleged enicl- 
ties in Soittliern prisons and that he n-as urged to denoiinee lliem puhlirtg. 
it is n fart that /'resident l/ineoln nerer did so eommit himself. There is. 
on the eontrar//, eridenee to show that he did not beliere them, lieing a 
keen 'nidge of men. lie ircll knew the eharaeter of hotli the accused and the 
accusers, the latter including both those irtio irilfnlhi misrepre.^en Inl Ihr 
Dialler and those irhn honesllji beliered the niisrepresenla lions. 

26 



^ 



be placed on tlio same rootini:' as other ('onrcdcratc Staio ii(i>|iiial8 
in all respects. ""* 

Turninii' apiin to Amlersonville i)i-ison, we find that tiie ullicial 
order for the location of "a large prison" in the South in 18G4 was 
that it should ha\i' "a iiealthy locality, plenty of pure water, a 
riinninp- stream, and. if possihlc. shade trees, and in the immedi- 
ate nei*>hborhood of i^rist and saw mills." 

The Confederate autliorities have I)een denounced hecause they 
did not cause to be constructed a snflicient number of barracks at 
Andrsonville, since the veiT order for its roundin<r required that it 
1)6 in the nei^bboi'liood of saw mills. This order, was, indeed, carried 
out as strictly as possible in accordance with the other conditions, 
but it must be remembered that the South, havinfj very few numu- 
factories. could not supjjly the tools with wliich to Iniild ; and that 
the saw mills nearest Andersonville. beini:- very ])rimitive atfairs, 
were not able to su])i)ly lundK-r sulhcient for the sto(«kade. much less 
for tlie barracks. Rut few of the olhcers of the iruard had "shanties"' 
and these were iicnerally Ituilt of the refuse of the mills. Some of 
the Imnber used was brou.ijht a distance of eighty miles and all of 
the available rolling stock of the Confederacy was taxed to its 
utmost capacity in transporting su^^plies for the army in the field 
and to the prisons. Tt should als<i be i-rniendtereil that "during the 

*Hosj)ital No. 21 in Riclimoiid. \'ii<j;iiiia. was aiiioiij; those sinjiled out for 
special eharpes of dpliheratc cniolty and neglect of siclc prisoners. I'ldiahle 
testimony by Federal ftfficers was jjiven (and ollieially sn])]tress(Ml i in 
rebuttal of these eharfres; but there was one incident connected with this 
jirison hospital that is of umisnal interest. At tlie time of the surrender 
of Kiclimond. TTosjiital Xo. 21 was under the direction of Assist-oit -Surgeon 
Alexandei' Tinsley. Richmond was captured on the 3rd of April. If^fio: l)ut 
when the Federal prisoners foiuid that they were to lose the kind olTlcea 
of this Confederate surtreon, fhei/ flirvisrlrex petitioned that he he ntlnireil 
to remain in eharf/e. This was accordingly done by order of ^rajor-fJeneral 
Weitzel. V. S. A. Surgeon Tinsley was Inter transferred with the prismers 
to Jackson Hospital and remained on duty in the serri<-e of the T'niteil >itatet 
frovernnietil until ^lay !Mh. or until there was no further use for his ser- 
vices. TTis modest bill of $2S.T.no f4)r liis own services and for futd and 
board for himself and "forage" for his horse was ])resented to the l'nite<l 
States Government. J)iif if irast never honored, although the cliiim was 
brouaht up in the I'nited Slates Senate at about the time tlie Hon. .Tames 
n. Blaine was making his wholesale and sweeping accusations of cruelty 
against all the Confederate authorities in charge of the prisoners, incduding 
Surgeon Tinsley. The Federal order ajipointing Dr. Tinsley had printed 
tlieref)n: "l/rr/iW// Dirertor'ft O/Jiee. Arnii/ of the James. Before Rielimond, 
Va." As the writer was preparing the order, however, he triumphantly 
drew his pen throuLrh the long-existent "Idfore." 

There can be no imestion as to th<' high cliaracter of Surgeon Tinsley. as 
well as to his unseltish (h'votion to duty. lie testitied. near the close of the 
war. before a Confederate Connnitte<' of investigation: "f Itave seen many 
of our prisoners retjirned from the North, wlio were iiotliing but skin and 
bones. They were as emaciated as they ctuild be to retain life. I saw two 
hundred and fiftv of our sick brought in on litters from the steamer at 
■RockeH's: thirteen dead bodies were brought olT the steamer that night. 
At least thirtv died in one night after they were received." 
• 

27 



last two years of tlie war tliere was not even a tent of any deserip- 
tion to be found in any of tlu- armies of the Confederacy, save such 
as were captured Irom the Federals."* 

Many writers, includin*^: the distinguislied editor of "American 
State Trials,'' still refer to "The Dead Line" at Andersonville with 
expressions of liorror, and it has l)een often brought forward as 
"prima facie evidence" that the Southerners were intentionally bar- 
barous and cruel, doubtless in io-norance of the fact that a "dead 
line" existed in Northern ])risons. At Andersonville, this regula- 
tion was an absolnte necessity and "consisted of stakes with a plank 
nailed on to]) and at a distance of twenty feet from the walls of 
the stockade." TTad it not l)een for this precaution, less than fifteen 
hundred guai'ds could never liavc held the thii'ty thousand and more 
prisoners under theif control. This '"dead line" was well defined, 
while in the Xoi-thern ])ris(iiis it was in many cases wholly un- 
marked. 

If there be chaiges of neglect and brntality in the burial of 
prisoners at Andersonville, the records show that the paroJed ]n'is- 
oners wei'e res])onsible to theii" comi'ades for this last duty. If there 
be charges as to tilth in the ])rc|!ai'ation of bunl and cruelty in its 
distribution to the prisoiiei's. it is to their ])ar(ile(l cdiiipanions that 
the com|ihiiiits may he carried. i\)v they wvw in charge of tliis ottice. 
If there be cbai'ges of foul jday. murder, and I'obhery (<( the hel])less 
sick by night, the paroled ])risoners may answer for it. They there- 
by made good their escape, and they are among those who testified 
that another was guilty of deeds they themselves had committed.** 

'I'lie best: known and the only s|)ecinc charges of cruelty ofpcially 
liih'cii lip for pnjscciil ion hy the rnite(l States (iovernnient were 
those preferre(l against ('aptnin lieni'v W'irz. for a \\hile Command- 
ant at Andersonville ])rison. 

The charges sustained by the Military Court which declared Ca])- 
tain W'ii-z guilty. wei-(>. in bi-ief: 

*^Xt)t only were tliei'e few iiii]ilctiu'iit s inaiiufiictured in the South for 
( ar; eiiteriiitr, farminfi, t'lc. liut cxcn nails wcMe not to he had, "there being 
l)ut one solitary niaiuifactory of cut nails in the limits of tlic Confederacy."' 

**At the close of the war. Brijjadier-Cieneral Xeal Dow, l'. S. \'.. after- 
wards tli(' noted teni])erance reformer, and candidate for the Presidency, 
went to distrihute (dothin<i to the ])risoners. He was jjreeled with profane 
alinse, wlieretipon he turned to those in clcirjic and said, in considerahlc 
humiliation of spirit: ■■^'<1U liaxc liere the rakinj^s and scrajjiiijis of 
Kuro])('," Amon<>' tiie lira\t' men lield jirisoners at Andersonville, there was 
just this inerci-nary element to he contended with, and <;reat nunil)ei-s of tiuo 
American siddiers siiH'ered terril)ly at the hands of such fcllo\v-])risoners. 
Tlie Confederacy, on the other hand, with few exceptions, cunld not draw 
upon uiy hut its own .\merican-horn population. There was, nc\ert lielt-ss, 
an e\ii eh'mcnt ainoiii: the Confederates in tlie Noi-theni |>ris<ins. Tliese 
weic the men who tool< tiie "iron-clad oath.'" Tlicy wfre sejiarated, in sonu- 
cas<-s. from tlieir former comrades. They were duhlied "galvanized" piis- 
oners. and were L;i\en more and better rations than tlie ])risoners who re- 
mained hiyal to the cause they represented. 

28 



••Tlmt ]k', tlic said TTciifv W'irz, did c-oiuhiiie, con fi'dc rate and 
(•(>iis|iiic with lliciii. the said .IcITersoii Davis. .laincs A. Scddoii, 
Howell ('(.Itl). John II. Winder. IJiehanl li. Winder. Tsaiali H. 
White, W. S. Winder, W. Shell.y Heed. \l. \l. Stevenson, S. P. 

]^Ioore, Kerr, late hosi)ital-ste\\ai-d at Andersonville ; James 

Diinean. Wesley W. 'rurner, Benjamin Harris, and others wliose 
names are unknown, citizens of the United States aforesaid, and 
wlio were then enjiaged in armed rei)ellion ajxainst the United 
States, malieiously, traitorously, and in viohition of the laws of war. 
to impair and injure the liealth and to destroy the lives — l)y suh- 
jeetino; to torture and great sulfering. hy eonhning in unhealtliy 
and unwholesome quarters, hy exposing to the inelenieney of winter 
and to tlie dews and hurning sun of summer, hy (-ompelling the use 
of im])ure wati-r. and l>y rui-nishing iiisuffieient and iniwholesome 
food — of large luunhers of Fedei'al pi'isoners. to wit, the numher 
of ahout forty-livt- thousand, soldiers in the military service of the 
United States of America, held as prisoners of war at Anderson- 
ville, in tlie State of Georgia, within the line of the so-called Con- 
federate States, on or hefore the 27th day of March. A. I). 1S()4. 
and at divers times hetween that day and the H»th <lay of April. 
A. !).. IS*;.'), to the end that tlu' armies of the I'nited States might 
he weakeni'd and impairt'd. and the insurgents engaged in armed 
rehellion against the Tnited States might he aitled and comforted."' 

IT. "Mui'der in \'iolation of the laws and customs of War"" in 
certain specitications to the nundier of lliirteen. In these "specifi- 
cations,"" C'a])tain Wirz is accused, wliile acting as Commandant, 
■of feloniously, wilfully of his malice aforethought, making sundry 
and several assaults lipon soldiers, helonging to the army of the 
United States, with a certain pistol, called a revolver, then and 
there loaded with gunpowdei- and hullets wherehy he inflicted nu>rtal 
wounds upon their hodies so that they died." Three soldiers were 
murdered thus, in each case the "specification"" stating, "whose 
name is uidvnown."" Si)ecification No. 2 told how a soldier, name 
unknown, was stamped to death hy said Wirz. .Vnother jirisoner 
was "tortured unto death in the stocks."" Several more died un.ler 
s])ecially contriveil cruelties, and others were fired n]m\\ hy orders 
from said Wiiv.. In each and every case, the mnne of the viitnn 
was "unknown."" 

The Militai'v Connnission declared Captain Wirz guilty <d' chargv 
r and of ])ractically all of the specifications under Charge II. and 
sentenced him to he hanged on the tenth day of Xovendier. lf^'>-"'- 

A few of the amazing circumstances connected with this trial 
mav he given here to sliow that it was, perhai)s, the only really 
infamously unjust ])rosecution and conviction on record in the his- 
tory of the jurisi)ru(lence of the United States, unless partial excep- 
tion 1).e nniile as to the condemnation of ^Irs. Surratt and Or. 
Samuel .\. Mudd. unjustly convicted cd" complicity in the hrutal as- 
sassinatioii of FresidCnt Tiincoln hy the demented P(»oth and his 
ignorantlv criminal acconiplii cs. 



Ill the first plaoe. after aseei'taiiiina' the nature and purpose of 
the niilitarv eourt apiointed, in viohition of the C'onstitutiou of 
the United States, to try Capain Wirz, the regularly employed eoun- 
sel for the defense withdrew from the case. Even permission to be 
heard, according to law, was denied the prisoner. It may be added, 
by way of a sidelight on the conditions of the time, that the three 
men who liad been brought forward by the same partisan leaders 
for tlie ]»ui'pose of convicting Jeiferson Davis of complicity in the 
assassination of President Lincoln had just been shown to be per- 
jurers. Two had turned state's evidence against the third, Conover, 
who was then in jail. It was determined that no chances for a 
like failure were to be taken in the case of Wirz. It was, moreover, 
easier to convict a subaltern than a higli official of the Confederacy. 

Captain Wirz was placed in confinement in the Old ('a])itol 
Prison on the 7th of Mav, 1805 ; and, from that moment, the press 
and people of the country were fed with stories of the "monster" 
and "demon" Wirz. As far as possible, all favorable testimony vol- 
unteered by Federal officers and soldiers was suppressed. A victim 
had to be produced by radical politicians and extremists in order to 
keep the American people from learning ( 1 ) that the suffering in 
the Southern prisons could have been ]irevented by the Federal Gov- 
ernment and (2) that there were at least equally terrilile privations 
in the Xorthern prisons, a knowledge of which would have led their 
countrymen to pour out their indignation on them instead. 

Ill the second ])lace. ("aptain Wirz was accused, by tlie terms of 
Charge I, of cuui^jtinKij with .Jefferson Davis and other officials of 
the Confederacy, in delil)erately planning the death of thousands 
of Federal soldiers. Ao/ n particle of eridence iras found ihai surh 
a coiispinicii crcr c.rislrd. yet Captain Wirz was convicted of this 
grave c-hargc. wliilc his fellow "conspirators."" a number of whom 
were actnallv named in the Change, were iievei' even broimlit to 
trial. 

In the third ])lace. the siccillc cbai'ges of murder broimlit against 
Captain Wirz were made by only twelve to fifteen of the one hun- 
dred and sixty former actual or alleged prisoners summoned or se- 
cured by those backing the prosecution. At least most of these, and 
])ei-lia|is all of tlieiii. like Conover. am! his two infamous associates, 
were ])erjurers. One of the witnesses upon whose testimony Judge- 
Advocate Chipman laid particular stress, as heiaij of a r(diahJe and 
irallifiil rjiarnrlrr. swore himself in as '"Felix de la Iwiunie."" a 
ne])hew of Marcjuis Lafayette. Upon (inishing his labors on the 
witness stand, and before the (rial was over, be was rcwai'dcd for 
his trouble by l)ein^'' ajijiointed to a clerkship in a I)e])ar1nu'iu 
of the Federal (lovernmeiit. while about the same time one of the 
witnesses who seemed likely to olTer favorabU' testimony for the 
defense, was arresfeil in oix'ii court, and ])laced behind prison bars 
before he eoiild testify, l^lexcn days after the execution of Wirz. 

30 



the alle,<iod Monsieur de la Jiauiue proved to l.c Felix ().->,.r of 
Saxony, a desertei' from the 7th New York Kci^iniciit/'^ 

Finally. (Hi tlie day before the excntit ion (d' Captain W'ir/. a tele- 
li-rani was sent out to the elVect that Wii'z li;id niMdc ;i c.i'ifossion 
which inii.licalcd .IclTci'son Davis. W ahoiit the same time, a mes- 
sa,ue was sent to Wirz, throu-:h the medium of his minister. Father 
Boyle, that if he would implicate Davis, his sentence would he eoni- 
nuited. Furthermore, in the -leliherate effort to hlackcn ihr char- 
acter of W'irz and to weaken the effect of his di'claration of iiino- 
cenee. a tele-ram was se]it out stating on high authority that the 
prisonei"s wife had attcmi)ted, on the 27th of Octoher, to poison 
her brute of a husband, althougli Mrs. Wirz was, at that time, liun- 
dreds of miles away. To eap tlie clinuix, the bodv of the prisoner 
was refused a Christian burial. It is perha])s signifieant of ulti- 
mate justic-e at tlio bar of history, whieh Liiu-oln has trulv declared 
'Sve eannot esca))e," that the body of Wirz was placed iii the yard 
of the jail beside the l)ody of Mrs. Surratt, who is now generally 
regai-ded as tlie innocent victim of another military connnission. 
Surely, if Captain Wirz were "a tool" and guilty of the crimes for 
which he was convicted undei' "Charge T." the men who so infam- 
ously used liim as such weiv far more criminal and deserving of 
the gallows than theii' underling. Why were they, too. not hanged, 
or at least brouglit to trial ^ The answer is given above in that 
those res])onsihle for the prosecution of "Wirz knew that wliile he, 
a ])oor subordinate ofFicer, might be convicted in the heat of sec- 
tional passion provoked by their misrepresentations, it was quite 
another matter to try and to convict the great leaders of the Con- 
federaty. Tliey knew perfectly well that the best element — the 

*Conoorniii<i tlio acfounts of cniclty presented in regard to the ailcj^ed 
"l)arI):irous ])raetice" of runiiin<r down fufritive Federal prisoner- \\\{h 
hloodlionnds, qnotatioiis from these very witnesses are snllieient to refnte 
the allejjjed fierceness of these "hlood-thi'rsly animals." We are told l)y one 
Mr. (ioss. in his seafhinji denunciation of the Confederate |)rison oflicials, 
how he, with a "rotten fence rail." held a whole pack of these ferocious 
liounds at bay. Another, pursued for hours by a nuudxM- of these ravenous 
l)easts. tells how. exhausted, lie fell asleep only to be awakened by one of 
them licking his face." Still another such writer unwittingly shows u- the 
real kindness of "(110 terriide l)ru(e Wirz" by describing "ihe villain" as 
he came into the camp on sundry occasions to warn jirisoners again-t nck- 
lessness. lest there should be unneccssarv loss of life. 

As late as June. 1002. an arfiide in the Ontiiry Magazine stated that, 
"Jeflerson Davis, President of the Southern Confederacy, was known to 
have imported a pack [of bloodhoinids] for breeding purposes. Tln-y were 
ordered destroyed. The man detailed for this work was a brother of Mr. 
George TI. Sleeker of l?4»alricc, Nebraska. Tie performed his fa>k well. 
for it is said thai he found and killed no fi'Vicr than forty-seven I)loodhounds 
at Mr. Davis's hoinc." 

.As a mailer of fad. Mr. Davis not only did n<it import any Idoodhounds. 
but he ilid not own any dogs al all. In the Septend)er issue of the Ceiilurv 
Magazine the editors apologizeil for Ihe error of their contributors and 
stated the facts, at least as far as .lellerson Davis wa-; concerned in reirard 
to this poyular and historical miseruiception. 

31 



,::i-ciiT iiiMJoritv — of the Xortherii (jroplc would k'ai-ii the truth in 
such a trial : aiul leaniiiig the truth, thev would tiiid out and punish 
tlu' aecusei-s instead of the accused. 

Is it not time that the nauie of Major Henry Wirz he cleared of 
undeserved infamy, just as the names of numv other innocent men 
have heen cleared? Is it easier to let things go on as it is, so that 
"one man may heai' the Ijlame for all?" If so, is it right? The 
answer from all fair-uiinded AnieiMcaus will lie an ein[)liatic nega- 
tive. 



The South in the Matter of Pensions 

.Money foi' pensions has heen raised hy this govennuent through 
a uniform system of taxation, hearing alike upon Xorth, South, East 
and West. The man in the South lias ])aid liis share along with the 
man in the Xorth, and his rate of taxation has all along l)een the 
same. Yet there has heen a most marked difference in the amount 
of money received hy the South thi-ough pensions as coin])ared with 
the hundreds of millions paid thi'oughout the Xortli. W'hiU' the 
Southern nnm has borne this hurdeu theerfully, complaining only 
when corruption was especially rank, it is important to note that 
this excess amount of ])ensions claimed hy the Xorth and ]iaid to 
the X'orth is not coiifiucMl to ])ensions of tlic War hetween the States, 
hut begins with tln' beginning of the piMision system of this go\erii- 
ment. 

The North early began to lay claim to large pensions and to 
receive tlieni. Fi'om the year l^i'l to the year is;!."! this goNcrn- 
nient paid out in |)ensions -^^DjGOO,!)!)!). Of this sum, a])proxi- 
mately $•;?(). nod.dOd was paid to the Xorth. while only .$!),(hmi.o()() 
was distributed throughout the entire S(uuh. Ami be it bornt' in 
mind that these i)ensions were ])ai(l bn- wai's in which all fought on 
the same side and in which the numbeis furnished by the South 
coin])ai'e most faovrably with the numbers fui'iiisbed by the Xoi'th. 
These pensions were for the IJevolution and for the Wai- of \X\'l, 
with ]ierliai)s minoi' wai's, Indian wars. etc. 

During this jiei'iod there wei'e paid out to the States severallv as 
follow^:' Xew York. -I^Ci.lSCi.ooo: Massachusetts, $:?,331,000 : Penn- 
sylvania, $2,()()4,(»(»o ; Maine. -^-.M 1 .^.(MH) ; ( 'onnectii-ut. $1 .!M-3.(HH) : 
Vermont, $1 .!)2;?,()()(> ; Xew IIami)shire. $1 ,(i!i:.(M»(i : \'iiginia, '^\ .- 
6-l-i),U(K); Kentucky. $l,l!13,()0() : and no otbei' Southern State divw 
as much as one million dollars for this period from 1T!)1 to is;!:). 
This is a \vy\ striking coniparison, and the causes for it lie in the 
characteristics of the people. 

Xow, as to pensions of the W'ai' rx'tweeii the States, the South 
has i'ecei\'e(l compai'atix cU' nothing, and vet the I'cport of the ('oni- 

il 



iiiissioiici' (if Pensions in tlio yi'<ir !!)()!) shows that thiMV liad Ih-cii 
jniid out uji to that year the ciioi-nious sum of !f;:i,(!S().(l(l(l,()(Mi. ,\U(\ 
of tliis total the Soutli had eontriljiited its full share throui:h a 
system of uniform taxation throu.uliout the country. 

Moreover, tlie Soutli lias home the hurden cheerfully, ni.ikinir 
complaint only when some flacjrant raid on the treasury was eiiiri- 
neered throui^h the Congress, such as the service jiension act of 
Fehruary C. liHi:. wliciv .i>5.S,00().(i()() per year was added to the 
])ension hurdcii. already loaded with fraud, and niillioiis ])aid out tti 
.Vorthern soldiers, so called, who had ncNcr seen a hattle Held nor 
fired a ,uun. 

As an exam]ile n\' the unequal distrihution of national money 
throufih ])ensi()iis, take the report of the Commissioner for the year 
1!)09, in which year $1()1,973,00() was dishursed. Of this sum." the 
eleven States which conijiosed the Confederacy received ahout $1'^.- 
800.00(1, Mild the North received the halance. jiroportioued amoiiji 
the States in part as follows: Ohio. .$l().;}T(i,000 : Pennsylvania. 
$15,85 1.000; Xew York. $18,!) Iti.ooo ; Illinois, $11.811, oiio; In- 
diana. $10. (i 10.000: and the other $.S0, 000,000 was scattered 
tliroii<ih the remainder of Xorthern and Xew England States, with 
a small jirojiortion sent al)road. 

As far hack as 1880 Senator Hayiie, of South Carolina, com|ilaiii- 
eil that the pension system was heini: maintained as a heavy char<i:e 
upon the treasury for the purpose of keeping' up tlie system of hitrh 
duties to which the South ohjected. He estimated that there had 
heen distrihuted up to that time ahout $15,000,000 to the North and 
West and ahcmt $5,000,000 to the South. Tn TIayne's view the 
South was payinii' the <ireater portion of the money which supplied 
the treasury, while the ])uhlic money was hein,!;- ex]XMided chietly in 
the Xorth. So, even tliough the complaints of Xorthern politiiiaiis 
of this a^ood year 1017 were true — and they are not — that the South, 
hemp- in the saddle politically, was lepislatinjr to her exclusive ad- 
vantage and receiving an unjust due of ]nil)lic money, the South 
could point to the ])ast for her excuse and exam])le. 

Coiiiiressman Thomas F. Sisson. of Mississi])])i, said in a speech 
at Meni])his in liXti): "Tf Mississip])i received only one-fifth of the 
amount which Ohio receives each year for pensions, she could relieve 
herself of her ]iresent school tax and not pay one cent and yet run 
her schools eipht months in the year." This further strikim:- state- 
ment is made: •'Kansas L-ets $5, ri8,000 in pensions and has a 
pojiulation of ahoiit 1,500.000 — that is. slie pets over $8.(10 for every 
man. woman, and child in the State. If ^Iississi])])i received as 
niuc'h, she could run the whoh" State poxcrnmeiit on it eai-h year 
and have over $2,500,0(hi left each year. What she rei-eived <'aeh 
year would not only run our entire State povernment, hut would 
pay all the State, county, and municipal expenses. The anitnint 
paid f^ taken from the report for the year eiidinp June, I'.'OT." 
Conpressman Sisson takes the lipiires from ollicial reports of P'OO 

33 



and shows how sums are paid into the following States that would 
equal per head for each man, woman, and child in the State the fol- 
lowing: Ohio, over $3.50; Vermont, over $3.92; Maine, over $4; 
Massa'chusetts, $1.88. 

It must be continually borne in mind that these sums are paid 
into these States from a fund levied upon all parts of the country 
alike; and while millions have thus been taken from the impover- 
ished Soutli and ])oured into the lap of the rich Xorth, the South has 
paid it uncomplainingly and has at the same time taxed herself 
further for the support and aid of her own soldiers. 

AYhile thus from the l)eginning of this government the South has 
paid its share of taxes and borne its share of burdens, receiving only 
a minor portion of public disbursements, it has always measured up 
with great patriotism to the demands of the government, and in no 
way has this been exemplified more strikingly than in its subscrip- 
tions to the liberty loans. Be it remembei-ed that every dollar sub- 
scribed to these loans by the South was subscribed from a purely 
patriotic motive and at a sacrifice, for in this section legal rates 
of interest mount to eight and ten per cent, and money can be 
readily invested and loaned at such rates, and the buying of a gov- 
ernment bond paying three and a half per cent is a sacrifice ; while 
in the won 1 thy Xorth, with its great surplus of wealth and call 
iiioiicY Iciidiiig as low as one ])cr cent, it is no sacrifice to invest in 
a stai)lp government security at three and a half per cent. This 
is not said in criticism of the North, which is measuring up to the 
demands of this great war, but it illustrates that, while the South 
from her scantier stores patriotically furnishes wdiat she can, she 
doe« It at a sacrifice not felt in the North and should receive credit 
therefor, even though her aggregate subscriptions may not equal 
the contributions of the far wealthier section. 

[The above figures are obtained from Vohnne V., 'The South in 
the Building of the Nation," in chapter on "Economic Conditions." 
written foi' the series liy Professor Glasson, of the Chair of Political 
Economv of Trinitv Colleo;e, who gives as further authoritv "Execu- 
tive Documents Sd'Sess., 23d Cong., 1834-35," iii.. No. 89, page 32. 
"The South in the Building of the Nation" is published by the 
Southern Historical Publication Society, of Eichmond. Ya., with a 
long list of distinguished editors in chief, and the subject of "Eco- 
nomic PTistory" in under the charge of Professor Ballagh. of Johns 
Ho]A'ins.] 



34 



Injustice to the South 

By Eev. Randolph 11. M'Kiiu. D. D.. LL. 1».. Wasliiii-ton. I). ('. 

A bisliop of the Protestant M|)istoi)al C'IuirIi. speaking- in Paris 
a year or more a^o, (k'st'rihcd the Southern Confederacy as "a 
heiligerent tliat was tiohting to make slavery a permanent principle 
on which to establish and maintain national life." A general of the 
United States aiiny, speaking to the Y. M. ('. A. in New York, 
stated that "the issues at stake between the Allies and the Teutonic 
powers are the same as tliose that were contested between the North 
and South in the xVmerican Civil War— the fon-es of slavery and 
disunion on the one side and the forces of liberty and freedom on 
the other." An eminent British statesman in Pai'liament gave ut- 
terance to a similar sentiment, declaring that the struggle on which 
the United Staes lias now embarked is essentially the same as that 
on which it embarked nearly sixty years ago in the War between 
the States. And a great New York daily (the Times) has pro- 
claimed to tlic world that there is an essential analogy between the 
spirit of the liohenzollerns and tliat of "the slave power with which 
the United States came to grips in lS(i1." 

These utterances, in my opinion, ouglit not to be permitted to 
pass unchallenged, for they end)ody, first, a contradiction of the 
facts of history, and, second, a cruel slander against a bi-ave and 
noble people. I submit that a careful and unbiased study of the 
history of the epoch of the American Civil War establishes lieyond 
the power of successful contradiction that the soldiers of the Con- 
federacy were not battling for slaves or slavery, but for the right 
of self-governmvnt. for the principle lately asserted by President 
Wilson, that "governments derive their just ]iowers from the consent 
of the governed." Neither was the war inaugurated and ])rose;uted 
upon the Northern side for the puri)ose of lilu'rating the slave, Imt 
for the preservation of the Union. 

In support of mv contention T cite, first, the testimony (d' Abra- 
ham Lincoln. In August, 18(52, he wrote Mr. (ireeley: "My para- 
mount object in this struggle is to save the T^nion and is not either 
to save or destroy slavery. Tf T could save the Union without 
freeing anv slave. T would do it : and if T could save it by freeing all 
the slaves," I would do it: and if 1 could save it by freeing som.- 
and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about 
slavery and the colored race T do because I lielie\e it helps to save 
the Union, and what T forbear T forbear because 1 do not believe it 
would help to save the Union." ( -Short Life of Abraham Lim-oln" 
by Xicolay. page ;536.) 

Mr. Lincoln, then, was waging tlie war not to free tfie slaves, 
but to save the I'liion. and when be issued his l-:niaiicii)ation Proc- 

35 



laniatioii (ni .laimarv 1. 18(i3, lie did not iiiidertake to free all the 
slaves, hilt oiilv "'those persons held as slaves within any State the 
people whereof shall tlieii he in rel)el!ion against the United States.'" 
{Idem, page 341.) 

Slaves in States not in I'eliellioii were not released from slavei-v 
1)V the Emancipation Proclamation, hut by the Thirteenth Ameml- 
nient to the Constitution. 

Moreover, Mr. Lincoln declared that the freeing- of the slaves 
was a wai' measure, adopted solely hecause he deemed that it would 
furtliei' the sujjreme ohject of the war — viz., the preservation of the 
Union. 

On the other hand, I maintain that the Southern States did not 
go to war for the ])erpetuation of slavery, hut for the preservation 
of the pi'iiici])le of self-governmeiil. To say that the hattle fla.a 
of the Confederaey was tlie emhlem of slave power and that Lee and 
Jackson and their heroic soldiers fought not for liberty, but for the 
right to hold their fellow men in bondage, is to contradict the facts 
of history, delferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, de- 
clared that the South was not fighting for slavery; and. in fact, he 
embarked on the enterprise of secession believing that he would as 
a consequeiKH' lose his slaves, for he wrote to his wife in February, 
1861, "Li any case our slave property Avill eventually be lost'" — 
that is to say, whether successful or not in establishing the South- 
ern Confederacy. 

Lee, the foremost soldier of the South, long l)efore the war hail 
cmancijiated the few slaves that came to him by inheritance: where- 
as his TJnion antagonist. General Crant. held on to those that had 
come to him through marriage with a Southern woman until they 
were freed by the Thirteenth Amendment. Stonewall .lackson 
nevei" owned more than two negroes, a man and a woman, whom 
he bought at their earnest sojieitat ion. lie kept ai-cinint of the wages 
he would ha\'e paid while labor, and when he considered himself 
reindiui'sed for the purchase money (for he was a pooi' man) he 
gave them theii' freedom, (ien. .Iose])h \\. Johnston never owneil a 
slave, nor did (Ien. A. P. Hill, noi' (ien. Fitzluii;'h Tjcc. (ien. J. 
E. 15. Stnai't. the gix-at caxalry leadei'. owned but two. a.nd he ri<l 
himself of Ixitli long prior to the war. (See article by Col. \\ . 
(iordon Mc('abe in the London Sahinhiii Hcricir of Mai'cb •"). 
I'JKI.) 

To this testimony of the most puissant men engaged in the con- 
flict r add the testimony of the common soldiers of the Confederacy. 
A\'itli one voice then and with one \oice now the Sonthern soldiers 
avowed that thev wvw not liiihting and sulfei'ing and dying for 
slavery, but for the right of self-government. 

I was a soldiei- in N'irginia in the campaigns of Lee and dackson. 
and I declare I nevei' met a Southern soldier who had drawn his 
sword to i)eri)etuate slavery. Xoi' was the dissolution of the I'nion 
or the establishment of tln' Southern Confederacy the suiireme issue 

36 



ill the niiiid of the Southern soldier. What lie liiid thiefly at heart 
was the jjreservntion of the supreme and saiu'il riuht of self-gov- 
ernmiit. The incn w ho made up the Southern armies were not fight- 
ing for their shives when they east all in the balance — their lives, 
their fortunes, and their sacred honor — and endured the hardships 
of the march and the camp and the perils and sufferings of the 
battle field. Besides, it was a very small minority of the men 
who fought in the Southern armies who were financially interested 
in the institution of slavery. 

But the Southern Confederacy is reproached with the fact that it 
was deliberately built on slavery. Slavery, we are told, was its 
corner stone. But if slavery was the corner stone of the Southern 
Confederacy, what are we to say of the Constitution of the United 
States? That instrument as originally adopted by the thirteen 
colonies contained three sections which recognized slavery. And 
whereas the Constitution of the Southern Confederacy prohibited 
the slave trade, the Constitution of the United States prohibited the 
abolition of the slave trade for twenty years. And if the men of 
the South are reproached for denying liberty to three and one-half 
million of human beings at the same time that they professed to be 
waging a great war for their own liberty, what are we to say of the 
revolting colonies of 1??6 who rebelled against the British cro^A^l 
to achieve their liberty while slavery existed in every one of the 
thirteen colonies un repudiated ? 

Cannot these historians who deny that the South fought for 
liberty because they held the blacks in bondage see that upon the 
same principle they must impugn the sincerity of the signers of the 
Declaration of Tndei)eiidence? For while in that famous instrument 
thev affirmed before the whole world that all men were created free 
aiui equal and that "governments derive their powers from the con- 
sent of the governed," they took no steps whatever to free the slaves 
which were held in every one of the thirteen colonies. Xo ; if the 
corner stone of the Constitution of the Southern Confederacy was 
slavery, the Constitution of 17S9 — the Constutition of the United 
States — ^had a worse comer stone, since it held its a^gis of protection 
over the slave trade itself. We ask the candid historian, then, to 
answer this question : If the colonists of 1776 were freemen fight- 
ing for libei-tv. though holding men in slavery in every one of the 
thirteen colonies, wliy is the tribute of loving liberty denied to the 
Southern men of 18(51 because they too held men in bondage? 

If George Washington, a slaveholder, was yet a champion of 
liberty, how can that title be denied to Robert E. I^ee? 

Slaverv was not abolished in the British dominions until the 
year 1833. Will any man dare to say that there were no champions 
of hnman liberty in England before that time? 

It will not be amiss at this point to remind your rcadci's, espe- 
ciallv vour English readei-s, that the gov(>rnment of England and 
not the p^ple of the South was originally responsible for the intn>- 

37 



duetion of slav(ivy. The colony of Virginia again and again and 
again protef^ted to tlie British king against sending slaves to her 
shores, hut in vain; they were forced upon her. Nearly one hun- 
dred petitions against the introduction of slavery were sent by the 
colonists of \^irginia to the British government. 

In 1760 South Carolina passed an act to prevent the further im- 
portation of shives, hut England rejected it with indignation. Let 
it also be remembered that Virginia was the first of all the States 
in the South to prohibit trade in slaves, and Georgia was the first 
to ])ut sucli a prohil)iti()n into her organic constitution. In fact, 
\'irginia was in advance of the whole world on this subject. She 
al)()lished the slave trade in 1778, nearly thirty years before England 
did and the same period before Xew England was willing to consent 
to its abolition. Again, in the convention which adopted the Fed- 
eral Constitution Virginia raised her protest against the continu- 
ance of that traffic ; l)ut Xew England objected and, uniting her in- 
fluence with that of South Carolina and Georgia, secured the con- 
tinuance of the slave trade for twenty years more by constitutional 
provision. On the other hand, the first statute establishing slavery 
in America was passed by Massachusetts in December, 1641, in her 
code entitled "Body of Lil3erties." The first fugitive slave law was 
enacted by the same State. She nuide slaves of her captives in the 
Pequot "War. Thus slavery was an inheritance which the people 
of the South received from the fathers; and if the States of the 
North after the Eevolution sooner or later abolished the institution, 
it cannot lie claimed that the al)()lition was dicated by moral con- 
siderations, but rather by differences of climate, soil, and industrial 
interests. It existed in several of the Northern States more than 
fifty yeai's ;\Hov tlic ad()])ti(»n of the Constitution. 

I said at the <iutsct tliat the uttoraiu-es which I quoted fi'om sev- 
eral ])r(iiiiiiiciit |icrs(iiis and froin an editorial in a great American 
daily embodied a ei'uel slandei' against a brave and noble peo])le. 
The com])ai'ison of the Soutliern leaders and soldiers — their motives, 
their aims, their methods of conducting war — with the Hohenzol- 
lern despots and their cruel officers and barbarous hordes of soldiers 
is truly amazing. To show its untruth and its cruel injustice it 
would be sufficient to quote the generous words of some of the most 
distinguished soldiers who fought for the Union in the sixties — 
such men as Gen. Francis Bartlett. Capt. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
and Gen. Charles Francis Adams, of Massaehust'tts. 

Cajitain Holmes, long since an eminent justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, said more than a quarter of a century 
ago: "We believed in the principle that the Union is indissoluble, 
but we efjually believcMl that those who stood against us held just as 
sacred eon\ iet i(>n^ that were the o])posite of ours, and we res]iected 
them as every man with a heart must respect those who give all 
for their belief.'* 

38 



And diaries Fnuu-is Adams declared that "both the North and 
the South were ri.yht in the great struggle of the Civil War, Itecause 
eaeli l)elieved itself right." 

Mv. Rhodes, perhaps the ablest Xortheni historian of the war, 
declared that the time would come when the whole American ])eople 
"will iccognize in Robert E. Lee one of the finest products of Amer- 
ican life. As surely as the years go on we shall see that such a life 
can be judged by no partisan measure, but we shall come to look 
upon him as the English of our day regard Washington, whom a 
little more than a century ago they delighted tt) call rebel.*" 

To compare such a pure and exalted hero as Lee with a tyrant 
like the Hohenzollern Emperor, or such a Christian soldiei' as 
Stonewall Jackson with a heartless commander like Tlindenburg 
or a soulless tyrant like von Bissijig, is an outrage upon the human 
understanding. To loiiipare soldiers such as those who followed 
Joseph E. Johnston and Ahiert Sidney Johnston and the two \u- 
ginia commanders just named with the bi'utal and savage legions 
that have desolated Relgiimi and Fi'ance almost passes lielief. And 
yet the conspicuous authorities named at the outset of this article 
have dared to say that there is an essential analogy between the 
spirit of the Plohenzollerns and that of the Southern Confederacy. 
Let them tell us wherein consists the likeness. Did the govermneiit 
of the Southern Confederacy ever ruthlessly violate the freedom 
of any other State? Did it cherish any ambition to establish its 
dominion over any other part of the United States or of the 
world ? Did it violate its plighted faith and scoff at a treaty as a 
"mere scrap of paper''? Is it not a fact that, with one or two ex- 
ceptions, during all the four years of war the Confederate soldiers 
in their conduct of war respected the principles of civilization and 
humanity? Ts it not a fact that when Lee in his offensive-defensive 
campaign of 1803 invaded the State of Pennsylvania his soldiers 
not only were not guilty of any bai'barity or of any rapine, but so 
respected private ])roperty that in the three weeks they were nuirch- 
ing and fighting on the soil of Penn.sylvania they left behind them 
not a single ])rint of the iron hoof of war? And yet men of Ood 
and officers high in raid< and editors of commanding ability have 
not hesitat('(l to institute a comparison betwe(>n the TTohenzollern>; 
and wliat tlicy are pleased to call the shnc ])o\\('i' of the South! 
Let me say to them that if they would find a jiarallel to the spirit 
of the TTohenzollerns as that spirit has been dis]ilayed in this tre- 
mendous war against liberty, they will find it in the record of the 
])illai;"e and ra])ine and the desolation inflicted by the .soldiers of 
the I'nion and their cam]i followers in the Shenandoah Valley of 
Yirignia under Sheridan's oi'ders and in the States of South Caro- 
lina §nd Georgia under the orders of (Jeneral Sherman. 

TTere is what Oen. Charles Francis Adams .says on that sul)ject : 
"Sherman's advancing army was enveloped and followed by a cloud 

39 



of inesponsible stragglers * * * known as bummers, who Avere 
simply for the time being desperadoes bent on pillage and destruc- 
tion, subject to no discipline, amenable to no law ; * * * in reality 
a l)and of Goths. Their existence was a disgrace to the cause they 
professed to serve.'"' 

General Adams continues : "Our own methods during the final 
stages of the conflict were sufficiently descrilied by General Sheri- 
dan when, during the Franco-Prussian War, as the guest of Bis- 
marck, he declared against humanity in warfare, contending that 
the correct policy was to treat a hostile population with the utmost 
rigor, leaving them, as he expressed it, 'nothing but their eyes to 
rt^eep with." In other words, a veteran of our civil strife, General 
Sheridan, advocated in an enemy's country the sixteenth-century 
practices of Tilly, described by Schiller, and the later devastation 
of the Palatinate, commemorated by Goethe." ("Military Studies," 
pages 2()(), 207. ) 

Note also that these acts of plunder and cruelty were not prac- 
ticed by the bummers only, but by officers and soldiers. I have 
recently read again the description of an eyewitness, that learned 
and accomplished man. Dr. John Bachman, of South Carolina, 
honored with membership in various societies in England, France, 
Germany, Russia, etc., and the narrative reads like a description 
of the devastation and cruelty and barbarian practices of the soldiers 
of Tan Kluck in Belgium and France. One sentence may suffice 
here : "A system of torture was practiced toward the weak, un- 
armed, and defenseless which, so far as I Icnow and believe, was uni- 
versal throughout the whole course of that invading army." Xot 
only aged men but delicate women were made the sul\jects of their 
terrorism. Even the blacks were "tied up and cruelly beaten." 
Several poor creatures died under the infliction. 

There, and not in the armies of the South, will he found a pai'allel 
to the spirit of the Hohenzollerns. 



40 



The Secession of 1861 Founded Upon 
Legal Right 

Bv E. W. E. Ewino-, A. M., LL. B., LL. D., 

Historian-in-Chief, S. C. V. 

Author of "Legal and Historical Status of the Dred Scott 

Decision/' &c. 

Secession rested upon fundamental law. The secession from the 
United States by the several States of the South in 1861. which 
led to the war between the Confederacy and the Federal Govern- 
ment aided by the remaining States, was within constitutional right 
found in that greatest governmental instrument, the Constitution 
of the United States. That secession was the extreme means, in the 
sense that the right of revolution as such a means is sometimes jus- 
tified, for the purpose of preserving the sacredness and blessings of 
written constitutional government, and for these purposes only. 

Now brush the cobwebs and preconceived notions from the mental 
vision and let us measure by the sternest logic and the strictest of 
universally recognized rules these sweeping premises, standards of 
conduct for which our fathers fought and for which many gave 
their lives and for which our mothers made the most supreme sac- 
rifices. 

First, then exactly w^hat do we mean by secession? We are to 
examine specific conduct, not the mere academic definition of the 
word secession. The question before us is : What is meant by the 
secession of certain States in the southern part of the United States 
in 1861? 

For the purpose of finding the legal ground upon which those 
Southern States acted, it is immaterial whether we regard the 
acts comprehended by the word secession in this connection as acom- 
plished or attempted secession, but it is interesting to recall that 
those in the exercise of the chief functions of the Federal Govern- 
ment and a large part of Northern people generally insisted in 1861 
(contrary to prior Northern doctrine and practice) that no South- 
ern State could secede, could get out of the Union; while four 
years later, after the South had worn out her swords and had broken 
her bayonets, and her brave boys were mostly asleep beneath the 
golden I'ods of the summer and the withering leaves of somber 
winter, the same pro-Union people generally and tlie functionaries 
of the United States Government were sordid and cruel in holding 
that the seceding States were out of the Union and as sovereign and 
independent States had ceased to functionate as units of the Union ! 
So to avoid confusion of thought upon this point it may be assumed 
without fear of suci-cssful coiiti-adiction that the seceding States wore 

41 



at leaf>t de fado out ot the Union. That a course of conduct does 
not reach its final goal is no evidence that it was not legally taken. 
So the secession here under consideration may he broadly and cor- 
rectly defined as the act or acts of the Southern States, each exer- 
cising what we call its sovereign political powers, the purpose of 
which was to sever allegiance to and connection with the Union. 

The Union was and yet is the relation between each State and 
a sovereignty known as the United States (or the Federal Gov- 
ernment) which was created by and which exists by the authority 
of that wonderful, written instrument known as the (.'onstitution 
of the United States. 

Hence secession was the act of a State as such by which it at least 
sought to become and for a time was de facto independent of the 
United States, out of the Union, just as each colony became by revo- 
lution independent of and out of the British Empire back in 17?6. 

Mr. Lincoln who was at the time as President the chief executive 
of the United States took the position that no State could withdraw 
and become completely independent. So as the Southern States 
one by one persisted in the secession course Mr. Lincoln sent Federal 
troops into the South to reestablish where l)roken and to maintain 
Federal authority — not to free the slaves or affect in the least slav- 
ery. To resist this invasion by armed force the seceding States 
raised troops to defend the newly asserted independence, just as the 
colonies did back in 1776 with regard to Great Britain, the South- 
ern States organizing in the meantime a centi-al government known 
as the Confederate States of America. Thus the war came on apace. 

Then since secession was either a withdrawal or an effort to 
withdraw from the Union, to become completely independent of 
the government of the United States, our first inquiry must be: 
What is the relation of each state to the Union? In finding this 
relation we necessarily define the govcrmiuMit of the United States, 
also called the Federal Government. 

The first thing we discover, as just intimated, when we come to 
see exactly what the American Union is, when we really discern 
the universally acknowledged fundamental of all fundamentals re- 
garding its existence, is that the Constitution is the one source of 
its power and authority, the sole source of its vitality; and so out- 
side of or minus this Constitution there would be no Union, no 
United States of America. This great, basal truth is one of the 
settled and established facts concerning our American govern- 
ment. 

In isKi, wlu'ii Mni'shall uf \'ii-ginia and Story of Massachusetts, 
two great constitutional lawyers, were members of the bench, the 
Supreme Coiii't of the United State, the entire ])ench concurring 
said : 

"The governiiirnl. tlien. of the United Stati's can claim no jiowers 
wliich are not granted to it by the Constitution, and the powers 

42 



actually granted must be such as are expressly given, or given by 
necessary implication." (1 Wheaton (U. S. Reports), 326.) 

In 1906 Mr. Justice Brewer, speaking for that same high court, 
said : "As heretofore stated the constant declaration of this court 
from the beginning is that this government (of tbo Unitcil States) 
is one of enumerated powers." 

Then as showing the place where that enumenilion is found the 
court in 1906 quoted with entire approxal the words from the decis- 
ion, as written by Story of Massachusetts in 1816, "the United 
States can claim no powers which arc not granted to it by the Con- 
stitution." 

This fact, a most basal truth, is found not alone in the decisions 
of the courts; but it is the great principle by wldch all departments 
of the Federal Government are admittedly controlled. It is the 
practical fact in all the activities of the general government. 

There is another similarly fundamental truth, practical fact: 

The United States government does not enjoy spontaneous or 
original or inherent sovereignty; all of its sovereign powers are 
delegated. This fact is Just as miiversally and as practically recog- 
nized as the other. "The government of the United States is one of 
deJegaied, limited, and enumerated powers," is one of the hundreds 
of statements of this truth repeated by the Su]>reme Court in case 
of the United States vs. Harris (106 U. S. (Supreme Court Re- 
ports), 635.). 

There is a dispute whether the States created the Federal 
Government, delegated to it the powers it has, or whether it is the 
creature of the whole people of the United States acting as a great 
sovereign political unit. It appears to me, since the Constitution 
went from its framers back to the States, had- in each separate State 
for its mdependent action, too clear for argument that it is the 
creature of the States, particularly since three-fourths of the States 
had to approve it befoi'e it became operative and three-fourths may 
now amend it. (Constitution, Art. V.). 

And all the more that this must be true when we recall that at 
the formation of the Federal Government and l)efore the ratifica- 
tion of the Constitution, "thirteen dependent colonies l)ecame thir- 
teen independent States;" that is, in other words, before the rati- 
fication of the Constitution "each State had a right to govern itself 
by is own authority and its own laws, without any control by any 
other power on earth." (Ware vs. Hilton, 3 Dallas. 1 !I9 : Mdlvaine 
vs. Coxe, 4 Cranch, 312; Manchester vs. Mass.. 1:5';) U. S. 25: ; 
Johnson vs. Mcintosh, 8 Wheaton, 395; Shivley vs. Bowlby. 152 U. 
S. 14.) But we need not stop to debate this (picstion here or let it 
bother us in considering secession. At the time of secession we had 
a certain kind of government, the same we have now. in fact : and 
however it was created we know that the univoi'sally admitted facts 
are that Ihc Federal (iovernnient gets its vital \)\\",\X\\ ti-<un the Con- 

43 



situtioii ; that all its powevs aro enumerated in that Constitittion 
and are delegated Uirougli it. 

Eegardless of from whom or from what detegated. this fact of the 
delegation from some other completely sovereign power is an im- 
portant one in considering- secession. Many errors have heen made 
by confusing the powers of the United States as they might be niider 
the general nature of sovereignty with what they really are under 
the limited and delegated sovereignty it really has. "The govern- 
ment of the United States has no inherent common law prerogative 
and it has no power to interfere in the personal or social relations 
of citizens by virttie of authority deducible from the general nature 
of sovereignty," as a recognized law authority correctly states the 
actual practical and accepted fact. (39 Cyc. 694). 

Then, the United States being a government of limited powers, 
lacking any power over very many subjects which must be controlled 
or produce chaotic confusion, it follows that the powers or sover- 
eignty whei'ein the United States is limited, which were never en- 
trusted to it, must rest somewhere. As summarized by a leading 
law authority, deduced from universally admitted decisions, here is 
full government in America : 

"The powers of sovereignty in the United States are divided be- 
tween the government of the Union -and those of the States. They 
are each sovereign with respect to the o]\]ects connnitted to it, and 
neitlier sovereign with respect to the objects committed to the 
other." (26 Ruling Case Law, 1417.) 

Here is the same truth in the language of the justices of the 
supreme court of Massachusetts : 

"It was a bold, wise and successful attempt to place the people 
under two distinct governments, each sovereign and independent 
within its own sphere of action, and dividing the jurisdiction be- 
tween them, not by territorial limits, and not by the relation of su- 
perior and subordinate, but by classifying the subjects of govern- 
ment and designating those over which each has entire and inde- 
pendent jurisdiction." (14 Gray (Mass. Reports), 616.) 

In 1004 the Supreme Court of the United States stated the same 
fact in these words: 

"In tliis repul)lic there is a dual system of government, National 
and State, and each within its own domain is supreme." (]\Iatter 
of HefF, 197 U. S. 505.) 

In an opinion written for the court by ^Ir. Justice Day of Ohio, 
the same high court in 1917 said: 

"The maintenance of the authority of the States over matters 
purely local is as essential to the presei'vation of our institutions as 
is the conservation of the su])remacy of the Federal power in all 
matters entrusted to the Xation by the Federal Constitution. 

"In interpreting \\\(' Constitution it must never lie forgotten that 
the Nation is made u]i of States to which are entrusted the powers 
of local government. And to them and to the jieople the ]")owers not 

44 



expressly delegated to the National Goveniment are reserved. The 
power of the States to regulate their purely internal affairs by such 
laws as seem wise to the local authority is inherent and has never 
been surredered to the general aovernnient." (Hammer v Dagen- 
hart, 347 U. S. 275.) 

Then, it is clear and certain, the Union is one of States — States 
each of which is as absolutely and independently sovereign with 
reference to the objects or affairs not committed to the government 
of the United States as is the United States with reference to the 
specific, delegated and enumerated objects and affairs within its 
jurisdiction solely by virtue of the Constitution. And don't forget 
the distinction : the sovereignty of the United States is delegated; 
that of each State is inherent. Hence, some light upon the sover- 
eignty of the State may rightly l)e had from a consideration of the 
nature of sovereignty in general. 

These all-important facts were well understood and recognized 
by the seceding States in 1861. The war of 18(31 to 1865 did not 
change the nature of our go\ernment or abate in the least the 
dignity of the inherent sovereignty of each State. Over and again 
the Supreme Court of the United States finds it necessary to em- 
phasize this truth. Many persons are under the erroneous im- 
pression that in any and all case of unreconcilable conflict between 
the United States and a State over any and all subjects the decision 
and action of the United States becomes the supreme law of the 
land. Xay, not so, as the above evidence proves to any open mind. 
And I earnestly desire that particularly our young men and women 
of the South will bear this governmental fact in mind when con- 
sidering the secession l)y Southern States in 1861. And this, too, 
by all means : 

Each State has a most vital attribute the United States has not 
under the law of the Constitution. Without the States or in case 
of an ignored or otherwise abrogated Constitution, the United 
States as a government, tlie Union, ceases to exi^st. On the other 
hand, in the words of the Supreme Court in 1868 when there cer- 
tainly were no pro-secessionists on the bench : 

"The people of each State compose a State, haxing its own gov- 
ernment and endowed with all the functions essential to separate 
and independent existence." (Lane Countv v. Oregon, 7 Wallace, 
71 ; Texas v. White, Id. 725 ; Polloclc v. Farmers' &c., 157 U. S. 
560; X. B. Co. v. U. S., 193 U. S. 348.) 

There you are ! Don't stop to quarrel as to who or what created 
this situation, this peculiar and dual government, this distinctivel\ 
American government These definitions and illustrations state it 
as it was as soon as the Constitution superseded the Articles of Con- 
federation, as it was at secession, as it is. The results of the war for 
the independence of the Confederacy somewhat dulled the usual 
conception of the i-eality, of the dignity, of the real nature of State 
sovereigntv : and my earnest hope is that we shall rrom now on 

45 



swiiiji' back to the true yrasp of wluit the American States each is, 
to tliat universal undei'standing which the States had when the 
Constitution was adopted, for, after all, auain it must he remem- 
bered, that greatest instiniment is construed in the light of the con- 
temporaneous history and existing conditions at its formation and 
ado])tion. "That wliich it meant when adopted it means now," said 
the Supreme Couit in Scott \. Saudford, 19 Howard, 426, a rule 
followed universally. (See, among manv, Missouri v. Illinois, 180 
U. S. 219; In re Debts, 158 U. S. 591 ;* S. C. Y. U. S.. 199 U. S. 
450.) 

Now, aside from its practical Ijearing upon the prol)len]s which 
arise today and those which will press for solution tomorrow, here 
is the bearing of all this upon the historical interpretation of se- 
cession : If the delegated powers of the Federal Governniet are per- 
verted by those exercising them, or misused or non-used, or ])owers 
not granted are assumed, persistently, endangering the domestic 
peace of a State, and tliis condition is backed and encouraged by a 
great bulk of opinion in other States and aided and abetted by laws 
of those other States, irlml is In he i/otic hi/ llie sufferiii;/ Slate? 
What would liave l)een the answei' to this cpiestion by (ini/ Slate, 
Xorth or Soutli. at tlie formation of tlie United States? 

Meet the issue squarely. Grant that such a condition has arisen, 
whei'e are we? Such a condition existing, there remain the sover- 
eign powers of the State, the ((dniittedli/ undelegated and inherent 
sovereifjnti/, having all the machinery of local government adequate 
when not thus obstructed for the ]n-otection of the domestic peace, 
for the defense of the property and lives of its citizens, "endowed 
with all the functions essential to separate and independent exist- 
ence," and thus equipped, thus endowed, mind you, under and 
pursuant to tlio Constitution, arcordini/ In llic funda mciilal law. 
Fundamental hiw Ixn-ause constitutionally recognized and guaran- 
teed, notwithstanding the inherent and reserved powers of each 
State ai'c not derived froni the Constitution, in the light of the 
conteniporaneons history and existing con(litit)ns, to tliis question 
what would ha\(' been the answer of the jieople of any State when 
they insisted at ratillcalion u|)on and obtained the Tenth Amend- 
ment : 

"■'File powers not delegated to the United States by the Consti- 
tution, nor ])rohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States 
resju'ctively, or to the ]ieo])le."" 

The answer must l)e that each State would ha\-e said tliat thus 
gnar(lc(| {lie Constitution left to it, /// I he rrcnl of Ihe conditions 
irliicli I hare assumed, the right to defend the admitted inherent 
sovereignty by any means adequate for that purpose. "The Con- 
stitution is a written instrument. As such its meaning does not 
alter. Thai which it meant when ado])teil it means now." "Tlie 
Constitution is to be interpivted by what was the c-ondition of the 
parties to it when it was formed, by their objects and purposes in 

46 



forming it, and by the aetnal reeog-nition in it of the (lissiiiiilar in- 
stitutions of the States." 

There is another fundamental ruk' followed in the iiiTi'r|)reta- 
tion of the Constitution, and that is that light is found in decla- 
rations by the States when ratifying that instrument, in im]:)arting 
to the United States the l)reath of life which it would never have 
had hut for the action of three-fourths of the States concerned. 
So also wi' go to the debates of the ratifying conventions and "ta 
the views of those who adopted the Constitution" and get all the 
light possible from contemporaneous history and existing condi- 
tions. (For leading authorities see 4 Ency. U. S. Court Reports, 
pages 30 and 41.) One great mistake too many make in examin- 
ing the legal justification of secession is to see it too exclusively in 
the light of today and under the brighter conditions subsequent to 
that war. Such an error is fatal to a just estimate of secession. 
The question is : Did the States think they were getting into "an 
entangling alliance" from which, come wdiatever woe might befall, 
they could not withdraw? Do the light from ratifying conven- 
tions, the views of those who ratified the Constitution, and the 
weight of contemporary history indicate that the States meant 
forever to surrender for whatever domestic evil might result some 
of their most important attributes of sovereignty? I don't see 
how any open minded and sincere mind can in the light of the 
great bulk of the evidence upon these questions relating to the 
formation and vitalization of the United States beheve that under 
any interpretation of the Constitution that instrument was meant 
to take from the States or from a State forever the invaluable right 
of resuming the delegated sovereignty when in the wisdom of the 
])eople of a State such a resumption (that is, secession) appeared 
necessary for domestic \)ea.ce and to protect and make effeeti\e the 
undelegated sovereignty. Mr. Justice Catron, of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, quoting from the famous Fedcralvit 
"in favor of State i)Ower," said : 

"These remarks were made to quiet the fears of the peoi)le, and 
to clear up doubts on the meaning of the Constitution then before 
them for ado])tion l)y the State conventions." (License Cases, 5 
Howard, 60 ;.) 

The ureat bulk of the people of the several then totally inde- 
pendent States were afraid of the centralized power about to be 
loaned to the United States Government; and the right to resume 
tlie delegated powers should the experiment become unhappy was 
the great reason which lu'ought the States to embark upon the 
venture. Thev were sure they had fixed the fundamental docu- 
ments so that they might legally, constitutionally and morally 
rightlv get out if any State so desired. Some of the ratifying con- 
ve"iitions sought to make assurance doubly sure, Virginia, for in- 
stance, interpreting the Constitntion as jiart of her ratification. 

said : * 

47 



"The powers granted under the Constitution * * * may be 
resumed l)y the people" "whensoever the same shall l)e perverted to 
their injury or oppression." 

Xew York followed by Rhode Island, as part of the res gestae, 
with reference to the powers delegated to the Federal Government, 
said that "the powers of government may be resumed by the people 
whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness/' 

Applying with such evidence a proper reasoning deducible from 
the general nature of sovereignty, it follows that the existence of a 
sovereignty "endowed with all the functions essential to separate 
and independent existence" must have the attribute of self-defense. 
The right of self-defense implies the right to choose the method. 
That is not sovereignty which has not the right of self-preservation. 
Sovereignty without the right of self-determined existence is un- 
thinkable. Sovereignty must be dignified by all that the word 
implies. "As men whose intentions require no concealment gener- 
ally employ the words which most directly and aptly express the 
ideas they intend to convey, the enlightened patriots who framed 
our Consitution, and the people who adopted it, must l)e understood 
to have intended what they have said," correctly said Chief Justice 
Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden (9 WTieaton, 188. See also Kidd v. 
Pearson, 128 U. S. 20; McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 36; Hodges 
V. TJ. S. 203 U. S., 16. ) There can be no such thing as limited 
sovereignty. There is division of sovereign powers; and that is the 
condition under and I)y virtue of the Constitution in this country. 
But sovereignty is a self-explanatory word and meant at secession 
exactly what it meant at the adoption of the Constitution. 

Shorly before leaving the bench in 1915 Mr. Justice Hughes of 
New York prepared the opinion in Kennedy v. Becker (241 IJ. S. 
56:') ). As thus prepared this opinion was subsequently adopted and 
delivered by Chief Justice White as the unanimous opinion of the 
Supreme Court. Concerning the power of the State of New York 
to control lands which were the subject of a treaty between Robert 
Morris and the Seneca Nation of Indians in 1797, the court says: 

"But the existence of the sovereignty of the State was well uiidoi-- 
stood. and this conception involved all that was necessarily implied 
in that sovereignty, wheihoi- fully appreciated oi' not." 

Upon that im|)r('unablc ])Osition stood eai-h secedinii' State in 
1861. 

\\\ the South we are coming too niiuli to whis]ici' thai "our 
fathers did their duty as they snv it."' W'c should be calling to 
the world from the housetop that tnii- ( 'on fcdrrntt' fathers were 
rujhl. For historical truth we should s]jeak in no uncertain terms 
in the sc-hools, should sound the facts in trump-blasts wherever the 
sul)ject is under consideration ; we should let the world know that 
we know that those fathers are entitled to as much glory for their 
defense of their wives, their mothers, their ehildren. the domestic 
peace of their State l)y wielding the inherent sovereignty to recall 

48 



the delegated and inisued sovereignty, as in the defence of that dele- 
gated sovereignty against a European foe, a defence which the 
South rendered gladly in our war with Spain* and which she ren- 
dered so brilliantly in our war with Germany that the right of 
local self-goverment might not perish from the earth ! "To insure 
domestic tranquility" — one of the five reasons assigned in the 
preamble as the grounds for the establishment of the Constitution 
of the United States — to better safeguard the lives of the women 
and children of the South ; to avert a destruction of some of the 
State's most important inherent powers of sovereignty, — in short, 
to escape imminent disaster involving the most vital and basal 
human rights, the seceding States faced one or two courses of 
action, short of the most servile submission to the greatest wrongs : 
they must either withdraw from the Union ; or, remaining in the 
Union resort to armed force against Northern States and the Fed- 
eral Government. But the situation at that day can best be 
appreciated when we consider the constitutional facts here 
briefly outlined in the immediate light of what constituted the 
imminent disaster, the ominous peril which shrouded the South in 
increasing gloom. There is not space here, unfortunately, to dis- 
cuss those powerful causes of that secession.** Those causes are 
too inadequately presented in text-books and too little taught even 
in the South. The production of this work, however, by the Sons 
of Confederate Veterans is one among other happy signs of a 
revival in the interest of historical truth. The truth and the whole 
truth, is the battle cry of the great organization of which I have 
the honor to be Historian-in-Chief, — a cry uttered from the soul 
of sincerity and without the least thought or purpose of animosity 
or bitterness. In the interest of history, for we do teach the chil- 
dren something about the great Avar which followed secession, and 
to be just to our Confederate fathers we must have a fuller grasp 
of the fundamental legal grounds of secession and of the weighty 
causes which moved the South — not that she believed in secession 
at will but solely and as an extreme measure — to resume certainly 
de facto the sovereignty delegated to the United States. 

When the causes of secession are considered in the light of con- 
stitutional fundamentals herein outlined, we more readily avoid 
the illogical contention sometimes met which insists "that the 
results of the war settled the question against the secessionists." 
Well, well ! ! It is iaxiomatic that war settles no great question ! 
Didn't the better thinking part of the world gladly agree to reverse 
the decision of a great question Germany thought she had settled 

*Major Ewing, the author of this chapter, volunteered to defend the 
I'liited States in that war and rendered ardent service to the United States 
in the war with Germany. — Editorial note. 

**The author of this chapter hopes to re])rint in booklet this contri- 
liiition together with a hrief ])resentation of the causes of secession. For 
particulars write Coh<h'ii I'lililisliinjif Conipany. Rallston, Virginia. 

49 



forever In' a decisive war? And didn't tliat reversal of the work 
of ^'ory, cruel brute force restore to wron^yed and outraged France 
suffering Alsace-Loraine? Ah, and more: America justlj' poured 
out her l)lood and lavished her gold in that great world war just 
closing to help establish for the benefit of all people the principles 
upon which rest our separation from Great Britain and the de 
facto secession of the Southern States : the inalienable right of a 
peo])!e to break away from an objectional)le and hurtful govern- 
ment I 

There will never l)e another Southern secession. Xobody thinks 
of it as a remedy for anything now: and no ])art of this Union 
will ever dare repeal the Xorllient nullificatioit of the Constti- 
tulion to avoid tlie evils of which — and iiot to destroy the I'nion 
and not to ])rotect or to perpetuate negro slavery — secession became 
the remedy to preserve the sacred binding power of a written Con- 
stitution without which the Union perishes certainly; and again 
because the Federal Government will never again be as limp and 
spineless and complacent in defending the South against sucli ('\'i\> 
as nullification and other wrongs l)y Northern States and some 
Northern people, to escape all of whicli our fathers found secession 
the one probably bloodless remedy, justified by fundamental con- 
stitutional law, and tiie one available remedy with honor. 



50 



The South and Germany 

By Lvon G. Tyler, President of William and Mary College, \'A. 

At the moment when the United States had declared war a.s;ainst 
Germany, there seemed to be a concerted effort by Northern speak- 
ers and writers to cast slurs upon the old South by drawing analo- 
gies betAveen it and Germany. This course was taken without any 
regard for the feelings of the present generation of Southern men, 
who see no reason to'be ashamed of the conduct of their ancestors. 

Probably the most vicious of these attacks appeared in the Neio 
York Times. Under the title of "The Hohenzollerns and the Slave 
Power," the spirit of the old South to 1861 is said to have been 
essentially analogous to that of Germany. The slave power was 
"arbitrarv, aggressive, oppressive." "The slave power proclaimed 
the Avar Avhich was immediately begun to l)e a Avar of defence in the 
true Hohenzollern temper." "The South fought to maintain and 
extend slaverv, and slavery Avas destroyed to the great and lasting 
gain of the people Avho fought for it, so that within a score of 
years from its doAvnfall, the Southern i)eoi)le would not have re- 
stored it had it been possible to do so." 

Here is the old trick of representing the weaker poAver the ag- 
gressive factor in history. An earlier instance of it occurs in the 
history of the Times's own State. The early >TeAv England Avriters 
in excusing their own aggressiveness represent the rich Ncav 
England colonies Avith their thousands as in imminent danger of 
being Aviped out and extinguished l)y the liandful of Dutchmen at 
NeAv'^York. And so it has been Avith the Southern question. In 
one breath the Northern historian has talked like the Tiines of 
the "arbitrary, aggressive and oppressive poAver" of the South, and 
in the next has exploited figures to shoAv the declining power of 
the South from the Revolution down to 1861. With its "inde- 
fensible institution" the South's attitude Avas necessarily a purely 
defensive one, and C'alhoun never at furthest asked any more than 
a balance of poAver to protect its social and economic fabric. The 
North began the attack in 1785 Avith a ]iroposition to cede to S|)ain 
the free navigation of the Mississippi River. In 1820, it attacked 
again AAdien Missouri applied for admission as a State Avith a con- 
stitution Avhich permitted slavery. It attacked once more in \S2S 
and 1832, Avhen, despite the earnest protest ol' the South, it 
fastened on the country the protective tariff system : and tlic attack 
Avas continued till both Congress and the presidency \yere con- 
trolled by them. When in pursuance of the decision of tlie Su- 
])rcinc Court the Southci'uers asked for the priviK-gc of tenipor- 

51 



arily holding slaves in the Western territories until the population 
was numerous enoug-h in each territory to decide the continuance 
of slavery for itself, it was denied them hy the North. It is certain 
that if nature had been left to regulate the subject of slavery, not 
one of the Western territories would have had slavery — the odds, 
by reason of emigration and unfitness of soil and climate, being 
so greatly against it. 

Did the slave power "•proclaim the war" as the Times asserts? 
Every sensible man knows that the South would have been very 
glad to have had independence without war. But Lincoln made 
the ostensible ground of the war an attack on Port Sumter, when 
after vacillating for almost a month, he forced the attack, contrary 
to the advice of his own cabinet, by sending an armed squadron to 
reinforce the Fort. Xot a man was killed, and yet Lincoln witliout 
calling Congress, which had the sole power under the constitution, 
suspended the writ of habeas corpus, instituted a blockade, and set 
to work to raise and organize an army to subdue the South. Presi- 
dent Wilson waited I'oi' two years till two liundred American citi- 
zens had been killed by the Germans, and even then took no hostile 
step without the actiou of Congress. Who had the "Tlohenzollern 
temper"— the North or the South in 1861 ? 

Did the "South fight to maintain and extend slavery?" The 
South fought for independence and the control of its own actions, 
but it did not fight to extend slavery. So far from doing this, by 
secession the South restricted slavery by handing over to the North 
the Western territory, and its constitution provided against the 
importation of slaves from alu'oad. 

Slavery was indeed destroyed by the war, and it is perfectly 
true that no one in the South would care to restore it. At the 
same time we see no reason wliy we should be grateful for the Avay 
in wliich slavery was desti'oyt'd. At the beginning of the Union, 
there was a strong sentiment in tlic Southern States, especially 
in Maryhiiid. A'irginia and Xortli Carolina, against the existence 
of slavery, hut the action of thi'cc of the New England States in 
joining with the two extreme Southern States to keep open the 
slave trade for twenty years through an article in the constitution, 
and the subsequent activity of New England shipping in bringing 
thousands of nciiroes into the South, made its abolition a ureat 
difficulty. 

No country evei- waged a war on priiuipdes more dilferciit from 
Germany than ilid the Southern States. Germany justified its 
cam])aigns of "frightfulness" on tlie plea of necessity, hut in any 
result its national entity was sccnre. The South, on the other 
hand, knew that failure in arms woidd mean the extinction of its 
national l)eing, l)nt there were some things it could not do even to 
prest'rve this, and so Tvobcrt E. Lee commanded her armies on 
land and Raphael Senunes roved the sea, but no droj) of innocent 
blood staincMl tlic splendor of tlieir achievements. 

52 



While I am glad to say that the North did not go as far as 
Germany the general policy of its warfare was the same — one of 
destruction and spoliation, and the campaigns of Sheridan and 
Sherman will always stand in history in the catalogue of the cruel 
and inhumane. 

The expulsion of the inhabitants of Atlanta and the burning of 
the city was the prototype of the martyrdom of Louvain. Eheims 
and its ancient cathedral have suffered less from the shells of the 
Germans than beautiful Columbia and Savannah suffered from 
the torch and wanton depredation of the Federal soldiers. 

In an article in a prominent magazine a writer quotes Lincoln's 
Gettysburg address and states that these last words of his speech — 
"That the nation shall under God have a new birth of freedom, 
and that government of the people, ])y the people, for the people 
shall not perish from the earth," described the great cause for 
which Lincoln sent armies into the field. Here is the same lack 
of logic and historic accuracy. The North had been antagonistic 
to the South from the first days of union, but it was really the 
jealousy of a rival nation. The chief elements that first entered 
into the situation were antagonistic interests and different occu- 
pations. Manufacturers were arrayed against agriculture, a pro- 
tective tariff against tariff for revenue. Long before the quick- 
ening of the Northern conscience, and while the slave trade was 
being actively prosecuted by men from New England, tliat section 
was particularly violent against the South. Its dislike of the great 
democrat Jefferson went beyond all words, and he was described 
by the Chief Justice of Massachusetts as "an apostle of atheism 
and anarchy, bloodshed and plunder." How much of real oppo- 
sition to slavery was mixed with this old-time jealousy in the 
Republican plank against slavery in the territories in 1860 no one 
can exactly say. But with the exception of the abolitionists, all 
persons — Democrats and Republicans alike — were unanimous in 
saying that there Avas no intention of interfering with slavery in 
the States. Lincoln was emphatically of this view, and so declared 
in his inaugural address. 

In instituting hostilities soon after, had he avowed that he 
wished to raise armies to fight the South for a "new birth of free- 
dom" and to keep popular government "from perishing from the 
earth," he would have been laughed at. Had he avowed his pur- 
pose of raising armies for the abolition of slavery, none but the 
abolitionists would have joined him. He obtained his armies only 
by repeatedly declaring that he waged war merely for j)reserving 
the Union. 



53 



OFFICEES. 
Soxs OF Confederate VetePiANs 
li)l!)-1920 
Conimander-in-Chief, X. B. Forrest, Biloxi, Miss. 
Adjutaut-iii-Chief, Carl Hiiiton, Denver, Colo. 

Staff 
(Jiiarternuister-in-Cliief, J no. Ashley Jones, Atlanta, Ga. 
Inspcctor-in-Chief, R. Henry Lake, Memphis, Teini. 
Conimissary-in-Chief, Chas. P. Rowland, Savannah, (ia. 
Judge Advocate-in-Chief, A. L. Caston, Chester, S. C. 
Surgeon-in-Chief, Dr. W. C. (Jalloway, Wilmington, X. C. 
Chaplain-in-Chief, Kev. Henry W. Battle. Charlottesville, \'a. 
Historian-in-Chief, E. W. K. Ewing, Washington, I). C. 

Executive Council 
X. R. Forrest, Biloxi, Miss., Ex-Otlicio Chaii-niaii. 
Ivlgar Scurry, Wiehita Falls, Tex. 
W. McDonald Lee, Irvington, Va. 
,1. W. Mc Williams, Monroe, La. 
.). ]\oy Price, Washington, D. C. 
Carl Ifinton, Denvei-, Colo. 

Advisory Co.AniiTTEi'] 
(Marence -L Owens. Washington. 1 ). C, Chnii'nian. 
Ernest U. Baldwin, Koanoke, Va. 
Seymoui' Stewart, St. Louis, Mo. 
W." W. Old, .Jr., Xorfolk, Va. 
W. X. Brandon. Little Rock. Ark. 
B. B. Haughton, St. Louis, :\lo. 
J. W. Ajiperson. Biloxi, Miss. 
Carl 11 inton. 1 )ciivcr. Colo. 

Dkpart.ai i:xr ( 'onf ai andeus 
Army Xo. \'a. Dept., Jas. F. Tatem, Xori'olk, Va. 
Army Teiin. Dept., B. A. Lincoln, Columbus, Miss. 
Army Trans.-Miss. Dept.. S. H. King. .)r.. Tulsa. Okla. 

I )ivis]()\ Com .maxi)i:i;s 
Alal.ama. Dr. W. F. (,)uin, Fort Tayne. 
x4.rkansas, A. D. Pope, Magnolia. 
Colorado, H. W. Lowrie, Denver. 
Dist. Columbia, A. S. Parry, Wasltingion. D. C. 
Florida, S. L. Lowry, Tamjja. 
Georgia, Walter P. Andrews, Atlanta. 
Kentucky, P. E. Johnston, Mayfleld. 
Louisiana. .1. W. McWilliams, Monroe. 
Maryland, Henry Hollyday, Jr.. Easton. 
Mississippi, D. M. Featherston, Holly S])rings. 
Missouri, Todd M. George, Independeni-e. 
Xorth Carolina, (Jeo. i\L Coble, Gi-eeiisboro. 
Oklahoma, Tate Brady. Tulsa. 
South Carolina, Weller Pothrock, Aiken. 
Tennessee, D. S. Etheridge, Chattanooga. 
Texas, C. A. Wright, Fort Worth. 
West Virginia. Palph Darden, Elkins. 
Virginia, S. Ij. .\dams, South Boston. 
SouUi West, 1-:. 1'. lUijac, Carlsbad, N. M. 



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